Technology cuts increase RBS profits

Stuart Sumner, Computing, Friday 6 August 2010 at 16:49:00

RBS is in profit for the first time in three years, partly due to new
technology efficiencies

Publicly owned lender Royal Bank of Scotland has
announced
a profit of �9m for the first half of 2010, up from a loss of �1.04bn in the
first half of 2009.

The profits are partly due to reduced costs, as its announcement explains.
Group costs declined by seven per cent to �4.1m, which was partly due to savings
from RBS Business Services, which provides technology to the group's
customer-facing divisions.

Business Services costs totalled �1.2m in the second quarter, down one per
cent from Q1 2010 and down nine per cent from Q2 2009.

Costs were further reduced by staff cutbacks. The lender has axed 23,000 jobs
worldwide since October 2008, 17,000 of which were in Britain.

These results follow an
announcement
from Barclays yesterday that it had seen its profits rise to �3.95bn in the
first half of the year, despite increased IT costs.

In its release, Barclays said: "Our strategic investment programme to invest
�350m in people and technology is under way."

Expenditure in this programme was �33m in the first half of 2010 and is
expected to increase to �80m for the second half of the year.

Full story at http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2267801/technology-cuts-increase-rbs