Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) on Thursday announced that it will cut 1,400 jobs over the next two years as part of plans to restructure its retail head office operations in Britain.

A woman walks by the headquarters of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in Edinburgh, Scotland, Britain, May 14, 2013. RBS on Thursday announced that it will cut 1,400 jobs over the next two years as part of plans to restructure its retail head office operations in Britain.

No customer-facing staff will be affected and support staff for the bank's retail arm including those working in communications, marketing and customer analytics are expected to be affected by the job losses, said the RBS in a press release.

"To serve our customers well we have to ensure that our resources are focused on the things that matter most to them," Ross McEwan, chief executive officer of the bank's UK retail, was quoted as saying.

"Regrettably, we can only do that by restructuring the way we work in head office so that every effort is concentrated on supporting our customers and the frontline staff that serve them," said McEwan.

"This is clearly difficult news for our staff and we will do everything we can to support them, including seeking redeployment opportunities wherever possible to ensure compulsory redundancies are a last resort," he said.

With about 8,000 staff as the fourth largest employer in Edinburgh, RBS also announced that it would invest 175 million pounds (268 million U.S. dollars) in Scotland over the next three years in areas such as branch refurbishments, improved complaints handling, quicker and simpler processes for account opening and mortgage processing and improved technology in branches.

Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth John Swinney said, "The Scottish government will do everything we can to provide support and help to those affected by job losses in Scotland through the Finance Sector Jobs Taskforce and our Partnership Action for Continuing Employment."

He welcomed the RBS announcement to reinvest in Edinburgh as a vital center for retail banking, which will significantly enhance its position as one of the main IT hubs for the global RBS Group and make Scotland the bank's global center for mobile banking and its global payments hub.

RBS has faced anger over 607-million-pound bonuses for executives amid annual losses of 5.2 billion pounds, though it recently swung back into the black with quarterly profits of 826 million pounds. (1 pound = 1.53 U.S. dollars)

Source: Xinhuanet