Royal Bank of Scotland is to axe 3,500 investment bank jobs and sell or shut equities and advisory business under a 3-year plan to further reduce risk and focus more on domestic retail and corporate banking, Reuters reported. RBS, 83 percent owned by the UK government, on Thursday said it will exit from cash equities, corporate broking, equity capital markets and mergers and acquisitions businesses. It aims to cut the balance sheet of its former global banking and markets (GBM) business by 120 billion pounds ($184 billion) to 300 billion in the next three years. RBS shares were up 3.5 percent at 22.5 pence by 0820 GMT, outperforming a 0.5 percent rise by the European bank sector . But it still leaves the UK taxpayer sitting on a 25 billion pound paper loss on the 46 billion pounds of state cash that was pumped into the bank to save it. -- SPA
