Taxpayer-backed Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has announced around 3,500 job losses over the next three years in a bid to downsize its investment banking arm.
The job cuts come after it was revealed that RBS executive John Hourican, the head of the Global Banking and Markets arm who will continue to oversee the restructuring of the business, is in line to pick up £4m in long-term incentive shares that he was awarded in 2009.
The bank was bailed out with £40bn worth of taxpayer's money during the financial crisis and these latest job cuts come on top of 2,000 job losses announced by the bank last summer. The new losses will mean nearly 11,000 posts have been cut at GBM from the pre-banking crisis headcount of 24,000.
David Fleming, Unite national officer, estimated that RBS had cut 22,000 jobs since 2008.
"Enough is enough. It is a disgrace that while on a daily basis stories are emerging about the massive bonuses at the top of the bank, increasing numbers of jobs are being cut from amongst the hard working staff," he said.
The move at Global Banking and Markets (GBM), which has employees in Stoke, Manchester, Edinburgh and London, follows government pressure for the 83% state-owned bank to pull back from its ambitions to be a global investment player.
The job cuts are likely to be controversial. The state-owned Royal Bank Of Scotland has faced criticism over the millions of pounds paid in banking bonuses, especially after the company reported such high losses.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg called the banking bonuses "irresponsible" in December, while revelations that the bank paid up to £2,000 a day to temporary staff caused widespread outrage.
Ulster Bank is also expected to announce up to 900 job losses in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland on Thursday as part of the cutbacks at RBS, its parent company.
There are fears that about 600 jobs will be lost in the Republic and another 300 in Belfast and other northern locations, but the bank has refused to confirm the potential redundancies.
RBS has said the move is designed to help the bank meet the ring-fencing requirements outlined by the Independent Commission on Banking and adopted by the government last year.
The recommendation called for banks to ring-fence their retail, or high street, operations from their riskier investment banking divisions.
David Fleming, Unite national officer, said RBS's decision to reduce the headcount at GBM was "staggering". He said: "It is a disgrace that while on a daily basis stories are emerging about the massive bonuses at the top of the bank, increasing numbers of jobs are being cut from amongst the hard-working staff."
Meanwhile, the bank said it would restructure GBM and cash management division Global Transaction Services (GTS), by splitting the businesses into two new divisions - Markets and International Banking.
The changes include considering the sale or closure of its cash equities, equity capital markets and mergers and acquisitions businesses, which had income of around £220m in the nine months to September and are currently unprofitable.
GBM which employs 18,900 worldwide, deals with a range of financial services such as debt advice, equity trading and mergers and acquisitions.
Its range of work with companies and governments spans from refinancing contracts for Anglian Water, Gatwick Airport and Tesco to debt issues for Finland.