RBS to axe 2,600 UK jobs

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) plans to cut around 2,600 UK jobs over the next year.

The bank's insurance division will suffer the bulk of the losses, with a further 600 posts to go at the head office of its retail banking arm, the BBC reports.

RBS has already announced about 20,000 job losses across its business.

It has been trying to slash costs since the massive government bail-out to save it from collapse in 2007, which resulted in RBS being 84%-owned by the taxpayer.

The banks's insurance arm includes the Direct Line, Green Flag, Churchill and Privilege businesses and employs 16,000 people.

It has retail banking headquarters at locations including Edinburgh and London.

As a condition of its bail-out, RBS is being forced to sell off its branches in England and Wales - originally Williams & Glyn's - its NatWest brand in Scotland, RBS Insurance and Global Merchant Services, its card payment business.

The sales have been demanded by the European Commission to safeguard competition concerns.

Virgin Money was today dropped from the race to buy up 318 RBS branches. Part of Richard Branson's business conglomerate, Virgin had been one of four remaining bidders for what could rank as Britain's sixth biggest bank, in a deal expected to fetch more than £1bn.

The three bidders remaining are Spain's Santander, widely seen as the front runner, BBVA, and National Australia Bank.