National officer Rob MacGregor said it would be a specially bitter pill for staff to swallow as RBS had decided to move some of the jobs abroad to the Far East, India and the US.

He added: "Just three weeks ago staff were boosted to hear of the 1.1bn half year profit yet today thousands of them are told that they have no future at the bank.

"Unite is appalled that this 84% taxpayer-supported institution has since 2009 - under the banner of a strategic review - cut 21,500 staff."

He said the scale of the cuts beggars belief and described it as a horror story.

One third of all the losses, around 1,500 roles, are attributable to the divestment to Santander of the 318 branches as ordered by the European Commission.

RBS has announced plans to offshore upwards of 500 roles to its existing non-customer facing technology operations in the US, India and the Far East.

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