AMSTERDAM - Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBS) said Friday it plans to ax 500 jobs in the Netherlands, or 26% of its workforce there, as it seeks to reduce costs in a difficult market and tougher regulatory environment.
The cuts, which will mainly affect back-office workers, are partly related to the global restructuring that the U.K. bank announced in January, a spokeswoman of RBS Netherlands said. "But it's also on the back of a review we finalized, in light of market circumstances and the tougher regulatory environment that we are facing," she added.
RBS said in January it was looking to exit its Dutch brokerage business as part of a broader package of measures being taken by the U.K. government-controlled bank to strip back its balance sheet by disposing of riskier operations and refocus as a retail bank. The disposals will see it prune about 3,500 jobs over a three-year period. RBS said it would either sell or close unprofitable parts of its so-called global banking and markets--or investment banking--business, of which its Amsterdam-based brokerage operations are a part.
RBS currently employs around 1,900 workers in the Netherlands, where it bolstered its presence through the takeover of parts of former Dutch banking champion ABN Amro Holding in 2007.
ABN Amro Bank NV, the remnant of the old ABN Amro, this month acquired part of RBS's investment banking business in the Netherlands. The bank, which is owned by the Dutch state, didn't pay a transaction sum as the deal allowed RBS to save on restructuring charges and redundancy schemes.
