Profits are pure gold

RBS CUTS LONDON TECH JOBS

Royal Bank of Scotland is set to slash around 40% of IT staff in London over the next three years.

Contractor numbers in the capital are expected to plunge by 65%, the taxpayer-saved bank has admitted.

The cull comes despite RBS and its NatWest offshoot being plagued by some major IT blunders in the past.

RBS, still 71%-owned by the public, employed 2,200 permanent staff in computing last year, including 1,600 in London.

But staff were yesterday warned this would fall sharply by the year 2020.

Unite, the country’s biggest union, said it could amount to another 880 jobs being lost.

Rob MacGregor, Unite national officer, accused RBS of being “fixated” with axing staff. He

Struggling nightclub operator Revolution Bars has rebuffed a merger proposal from rival Deltic Group. Revolution is already the subject of a £100million takeover tilt from Slug And Lettuce owner Stonegate. said the IT cull would leave the bank “operating as a skeleton service, with the customers and remaining staff paying the price”.

A RBS spokesman said: “Inevitably as RBS becomes a simpler, smaller bank focused on the UK and Ireland, our technology function will undergo reorganisation and will reduce over time.” A gold rush helped boost half-year profits at pawnbroker H&T by 62%. Gold prices have risen on the back of sterling’s weakness since last year’s Brexit vote, with investors snapping up the precious metal instead. H&T, which runs 181 stores and is 120 years old, said it also benefited from a reduction in high street competitors. As a result, profits jumped from £3.7million to £6m in the six months to June 30. Clothing firms are limbering up to flog £2.5billion worth of ‘athleisure’ this year.

Industry experts GlobalData reckon the market for athletic/ leisurewear popular with runners, gym goers and others will jump 8% in 2017.

Trendy fashion firm Superdry (pictured) is one of a number of companies to muscle in on the sector by launching special ranges.