RBS sharpens axe again: 900 IT jobs to go by 2020

Presumably this has come about because RBS has, unlike every other big bank I've ever worked in, through a prudent and common sense approach, invested the correct amount on IT, fully realising the importance of a well maintained IT platform to the correct and continued functioning of the bank.

This clever investment will have allowed them to successfully simplify all internal systems and interfaces, removing duplication brought about by mergers, reorganisations, poor specification and egos, and generally tidy up and prune all the legacy spaghetti that tends to accrete over the years.

As part of this completely successful remediation process, I would expect that the few remaining systems are fully documented with concise, yet complete runbooks, and because RBS will have had the best people working on these systems - understanding that good development does not come cheap, the reliability of the resulting streamlined IT platform will be second to none.

That has to be the explanation. Any other reason, say ill-thought out cost cutting, would be fucking stupid, given all the IT-related problems that RBS has suffered from.

I've never dreamed of an IT department that big. Ridiculous that they still have more IT workers left over then are in my current company total.

They need a leaner and meaner model.

Disgraceful

The discredited, corrosive legacy of Fred 'the shred' lives on.

Yep the beancounters are at it again. They whine that profits aren't big enough so IT is cut. "cause they are the easy targets, and of course "IT"? whats so hard about that.

The IT staff go and then they whine that they can't log in, they whine their excel wont load, the Network is slow. I forgot my password they whine . Then they whine they they don't get the same hand holding, snot nose wiping level of care as they did when IT was In house. It Come back in house, Then they whine again. Rinse and repeat over the decades

Beancounters whine, the world turns. The real news would be if a beancounter was able to look past fiddling spreadsheets and saw the big picture.

typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does

So, yes, they are going to lose a bunch of jobs in London: there are a couple of interesting things about that which, conveniently, have been downplayed or omitted by the source of this information.

London is a pretty expensive place to do business: might it not be a good idea for a company which is trying to save costs to, you know, move to cheaper places in the UK? Places where people find it hard to get jobs? Is that a bad thing now?

What part of RBS runs out of London? Could it be investment banking? Why yes, it could. And isn't there some kind of big ongoing saga that affects investment banking? Some kind of political thing? Something that might cause banks to need to move a bunch of their operations to cities outwith the UK? Like, I don't know, Amsterdam, where they have a banking licence already. So, I don't know, you might expect banks to be reducing headcount in London, don't you think? Or should they stick their heads up their arses and pretend none of it is happening like our glorious leaders, until in a couple of years someone hacksaws through their necks and leaves them stuck there.

Where does the IT part of RBS's retail banking run from? Is it London or some other capital city a bit north of there? Gosh, yes it is that other city, isn't it. And how many staff are they planning to lose in this other city? Or are they actually hiring people up there?

And finally: I don't work for RBS, but I do own a stake in them because I pay taxes in the UK. I'd kind of like them to make a profit sometime so I can actually get the great chunk of my money that the government threw at them in 2008 back. If that means making their IT operations a little less bloated and inefficient, then I'm actually fine with that. Even if involves making it harder for me to find my next contract.

Diclaimer: I don't work for RBS. I don't even know if what they are planning is right. I do know that the source behind this article is seriously one-sided.

Accountancy is just like technology. Some basic rules to follow and any trained person in the world can write that spreadsheet and crunch those numbers.

Funny however that we don't see masses of bean counter jobs being "right shored" to cheaper operating places.

When they came for the technologists I didn't speak out as I'm not a technologist...