British Chancellor George Osborne has revealed plans to further scale down the investment banking arm at RBS and shift the taxpayer-backed bank’s focus to the UK.

UK banking stocks lost ground today after British business secretary Vince Cable said proposals for a radical industry shake-up would be accepted in full.

AS the Irish banking sector continues to struggle it raises the prospect of a merger or takeover of one or more of the banks.

Hundreds of workers could lose their jobs if the proposed merger between banking giant Barclays and ABN Amro goes ahead, it was reported today.