RBS to withdraw investment bank from Asia

24th Feb 2015 12:57

Royal Bank of Scotland is planning to accelerate the withdrawal of the bank's investment division from Asia.As part of a reshuffle within the 79% taxpayer-owned lender before the expected appointment of ex-FSA head Howard Davies as chairman, restructuring chief Rory Cullinan will take over responsibility for running RBS's investment bank.Cullinan, who currently runs the lender internal 'bad bank' and is overseeing the sale of Citizens Financial in the US and Williams & Glynn in the UK, will also be responsible for conducting the lender's exit from a number of European markets.RBS, which could face considerable losses from the Williams & Glynn sale, is also thought to be set to announce massive job cuts in Asia, with its team in Singapore reduced to 200 from 2,800 at the end of 2014.Analysts at Investec recently downgraded RBS due to the lack of any imminent hiking of the bank rate and recent calls for the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to investigate allegations of low IRHP (interest rate hedging products) redress assessments by RBS relative to other banks' standards.