Is RBS really so desperate to hire?

When we posted an article last week suggesting who might be hiring in the short interval before Christmas, some of you pointed out that we'd missed off RBS. The bank has allegedly being approaching all kinds of people in its zeal to recruit.

So how desperate is it? In some areas, the answer appears to be very.

One of those areas seems to be equities. The business was hit by the departure of its head, Michael Baptista, in August. It also lost Robert Bate, its head of European equity research, and former head of European research at ABN AMRO. Bates recently resurfaced as equity research product manager at BarCap.

According to one headhunter with knowledge of the matter, RBS is now looking to hire in eight or nine sectors for equity research, but is allegedly having trouble securing people. "My understanding is that they've been making offers, but that people keep being bid back by their own firms," he says.

RBS is also hiring in fixed income sales and trading. But another recruiter with knowledge of this build says they're biding their time until 2010. "There are a couple of people they might hire this year, but they're out of the market. In 2010 they will be hiring pretty much across the board in structuring and fixed income sales and trading."

Elsewhere, however, RBS appears to have been trimming rather than recruiting. Last week, eight Asia Pac corporate financiers were cut, and it emerged that Mark Hickey, co-head of DCM, was expected to leave as part of a rationalization of the management structure.