Royal Bank of Scotland will be axing up to 20,000 jobs which is seen as an extremely savage move to bring the bank back into profitability.

After the bank made a 28 billion pound sterling loss in 2008, the bank needs to do something drastic quickly to salvage the business, the RBS now as the dubious record as having the biggest loss in UK corporate history.

Last week RBS cut 2300 jobs about 2% of the 106,000 workforce in the UK.

Why such a big loss?

• RBS bad recent fortunes included buying ABN Ambro, the Dutch bank at the top of the market.
• The massive increase in bad debts to 20 billion in 2008.
• Also having what is now deemed to have lots of unnecessary business in developing countries, these will be sold off or closed down, scaling back in activity includes Slovakia, Romania and Uzbekistan.

Picture leff: RBS presenting themselves as a fun bank, but the workers will not be enjoying the latest job cuts.