RBS 300

THREE hundred Liverpool banking jobs are in jeopardy after the latest round of redundancies announced by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

Its business services centre on Wavertree Technology Park’s Stephenson Way is one of 12 locations around the country facing closure by 2012.

It said the latest job losses are linked to an order by the European Commission that it had to offload banking branches, which has resulted in the sale of 318 branch sites to Spanish/UK banking group Santander. A spokeswoman said the sale to Santander, effectively closing the RBS branch network throughout England, will mean less need for back office and administration roles across the group.

The bank said it will retain 10 back office centres, but will close sites in Liverpool, Leeds, Bolton, Enfield, Harrogate, Bristol, Borehamwood, Milton Keynes, Plymouth, Telford, Bradford and Norwich and put a further three sites under review.

However, a regional spokesman for the bank insisted that the proposed Wavertree business services centre closure will not necessarily result in 300 job losses. He said: “We will try and redeploy staff or offer them other options within the RBS group.”