Briefs: RBS Moves Into Corporate Banking

RBS edges into corporate banking... JPMorgan restructures equities group... Credit Suisse asset finance capital markets into specialty finance unit.

The Royal Bank of Scotland plans to add staff as it moves into offering corporate banking services through its Citizens Financial Group subsidiary. Speaking to an investor conference, the bank's chief executive, Fred Goodwin, said Citizen's "options are no longer confined simply to retail banking," according to Reuters. Goodwin called corporate banking a "significant opportunity," adding, "We have got the platform. It's more a question of adding in the resource in the form of people and relationship managers." Separately, the bank said it plans to close its pension plan to new employees beginning in October, Reuters reported.

A restructuring of JPMorgan's 1,000-person equities unit is in part intended to allow the bank to leverage talent between the equities and derivatives groups. As an example, algorithm developers for the equities group to design algorithms for the derivatives side, Emily Portney, JPMorgan's chief financial officer for global equities, told Trader Monthly. The restructuring organizes the equities division along global lines, the magazine said. Senior managers will take charge of equities, fixed income, credit and commodities and currencies, as opposed to running regional groups across asset classes.

Credit Suisse merged its asset finance capital markets group with its U.S. specialty finance unit, creating a wider specialty finance group. Securitization News reports the move is intended improve coordination among the firm's securitization, debt and equity financing, mergers and acquisitions, and asset sales businesses, and to allow securitization professionals to work on related transactions among the other groups.