Hundreds of city jobs axed in latest RBS redundancies

The bank, which is 83 per cent owned by the taxpayer, announced a total of 3500 posts were to disappear across the country, 2500 from business support centres and the other 1000 from its IT centres.

In Edinburgh, the bank's business support centre at Drummond House at the Gyle is to be retained as a "centre of excellence" without any jobs being cut.

But it has emerged that RBS' IT centre in Fettes Row is expected to see major job losses. Most of the bank's IT staff are based in Edinburgh or London, meaning the bulk of the 1000 redundancies will come from these two centres.

Alison Maclean, regional officer for the Unite union, predicted hundreds of job losses from Edinburgh. She said the bank was planning to cut around a quarter of its IT staff and 500 jobs could go to the Far East, India or United States.

She said: "What adds insult to injury is that less than a month ago, RBS announced half-year profits of 1.1 billion. Staff may have been boosted by that news, only to be told now that was not the true picture."

The news of the RBS cuts, on top of the 9000 job losses announced last year, came just a day after Standard Life revealed 480 posts would go in Edinburgh.

Under the RBS plan, 12 of its current 22 business support centres across the UK will close.

The two Scottish centres, at Drummond House and Greenock, are being retained and staff could increase.

RBS also said over the next two years Edinburgh would gain 150 high-skilled IT jobs transferred from, among other places, the Netherlands.

It said the end result was Scotland could see an overall net gain in jobs.

An RBS spokeswoman said: "Having to cut jobs is the most difficult part of our work. We will do all we can to support our staff, offer redeployment opportunities where possible and keep compulsory redundancies to an absolute minimum."

City economic development leader Tom Buchanan said: "We need to recognise there will be changes. What we want to do is ensure there are continuing strong head office functions in Edinburgh, RBS' home."

Finance Secretary John Swinney said: "The Scottish Government will continue to support Scotland's financial services industry in maintaining its real strengths and in adapting to change."