back to article Britain's bank slashes tech jobs

Royal Bank of Scotland - which is mostly owned by us - is slashing back office and technology jobs in its wealth management division. The bank stressed it would try to avoid compulsory redundancies and said that less than a quarter of the previous 2,600 redundancies in its insurance business were compulsory. The bank said: " …

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  1. irish donkey
    Stop

    A way out of the credit crunch......

    off shore all the work to India. There profits increase in the short term Bonus's are paid and the tax payer gets their money.

    Maybe if banks were focused on making real money over a longer period of time then we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

    Banks! The root of all evil.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Did you try reading the article?

      It's not off shoring, they're putting an off-the-shelf package in place of existing (presumably expensive and old) kit.

      "Banks! The root of all evil" - irish donkey

      "Immigants! I knew it was them! Even when it was the bears, I knew it was them" - Moe Szyslak

      1. irish donkey
        WTF?

        Who caused the credit crunch/recession?

        Oh yes that right the Banks.

        Their greed is causing thousands of people in this country to lose their jobs. NHS Staff, Teachers, IT Workers, Shop Workers but yet they still get their bonuses.

        It wasn't us it was you the Banks so if I appear to blame the Banks for all the trouble going on that's because it was you.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      India

      Actually, They do outsource some stuff to india, but the error rates are so high that they actually employ MORE staff in total for fixing and processing than they did originally to process the work. It's assumed that a few years on the error rate in india will go down and they can sack (err, relocate) the staff who fix the errors.

      Banks are not the root of all evil.. It's people with a good dollop of govt thrown in.

      1. irish donkey
        Thumb Down

        It's not off shoring

        Whaaaat????..

        We are going to off load everything into the CLOUD. WooHoo the CLOUD. Which means we don't need Infrastructure People, Support People, no more Project Managers just Business Relationship Managers and thin clients. All this will be in the CLOUD. Easy money...

        And where is this CLOUD...... ahh ohhh let me think Liverpool maybe ... Newcastle.

        No!

        Anywhere that labour is cheap and that includes India, Africa, anywhere they can build a hugh server farm the size of a city.

        They may not call it Off-Shoring but that's still what it is.

    3. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. nsld
    FAIL

    Ah the unions..........

    Good old Unite is quite happy to bring BA down in its drive to save members jobs etc etc but is mighty quiet on this one.

    I guess a taxpayer bailed bank isnt as juicy a PR target for them as an airline with shareholders.

    Fail, an apt word to describe Unite

    1. Rob
      FAIL

      Damn the Unions

      I think they wouldn't dare attack RBS for fear of angering the taxpayers which they must realise only tolerate them at best.

      Their involvement in the BA situation is a farce.

      I second the motion to describe Unite with a big fat FAIL.

  3. Shinobi87
    Thumb Down

    what a supprise

    don't fire the morons who put you in the crap. fire all the people who support the company. same old story. IT is always first to go and then everyone cries about lack of support

  4. seanj
    Grenade

    "Restructuring our operations"

    Read - "offshoring on the cheap".

    I look forward to the day when your system collapses and you realise you've got rid of the only people who might be able to fix it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Swing and a miss

      Try "Read - the article and the linked article"

      They're re-platforming, i.e. taking all their old crap off their legacy estate and putting it on a pre-fab solution from Avaloq.

      Any IT folks that do go, will quite likely either want to go (thanks to the massive pay-off that comes with it) or close to retirement already - it's legacy IT (read, relies on expensive contractors, is a dying art and will have no support in the mid to long term)

      Still, nice to see the idiots from the unions chirrupping that jobs shouldn't go. We used to employ a tea-boy, but we've got a vending machine now. Still, no reason to lay off the tea-boy I suppose...

  5. JimC

    BA/RBS

    Perhaps the difference is the quality of management: the size of vote in favour of strike action that the BA vote delivered only happens when the management have really seriously upset the workers... that size of vote really isn't much to do with the Union...

  6. Charles Calthrop

    ceci est

    Amusing when IT jobs in the public sector go (for instance BECTA) the comments are all gloating and yet when jobs in the private sector go it is all woe is me. I feel sorry for everyone!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Pint

      Were we?

      I don't think anyone was, were they? We're all banging on about how shite RBS are in general and that restructuring ( ie, jobs abroad ) is a nice short term gain to save money, but a dead loss in the long term.

      I am more less resigned to the fact that losing your job is a given in today's IT market, no matter whom you work for and no matter how stable their business.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    so then

    This is how it goes down:

    - Bank hires loads of "high fliers" to take huge risks in the quest for wealth.

    - After a surprisingly long period of time (and wealth generation) said risks eventually go titsup.

    - Bank worries about effect of risks and decides it doesnt like the pain and suffering said titsup will cause so gets Public to pay out (*)

    - Bank now in debt to public so must save money

    - Bank decides to do this by sacking low paid IT drones while awarding bonuses to previously said risk takers.

    - New, streamlined bank continues to take risks and manage the wealth of very rich while 500 IT bods are now signing on, adding to the taxpayer's drain.

    Yeah it makes loads of sense to me.

    (*) So, in effect, the public was the one taking the risk and gamblng on the banks success. Only we didnt get a fair share of the wins, we only get the loss. Strangely, City high-flyers get the exact opposite and are then awarded huge bonuses for being so good at their job. Which must mean their job is to fleece the taxpayer.

    Shouting because the whole sorry state of affairs annoys me. And the fact it will never change annoys me even more. If only *I* were rich......

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Thick or thin end of the wedge.....

    2,600 three weeks ago.

    500 this week.

    I guess the 72 IT redundancies announced at RBS last week was too small for anyone to notice.

    Or the wholesale outsourcing of the network to Accenture.

  9. John A Blackley

    A question about UNITE

    "a spokesman for the Unite union said there was no reason why investment in new technology should mean job cuts."

    Are all UNITE spokesunits idiots?

    1. adam.c
      Paris Hilton

      To be fair

      He is technically correct.

      You could be investing in new tech to improve the productivity of the *existing* workforce - do more with the same number of people and avoid having to hire more.

      Doesn;t always have to be "do the same with less people".

      Paris - because she's a "do more with people" kind of girl

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