RBS has been eagerly recruiting corporate bankers

A 1.1bn loss at RBS for 2010 may not seem like much to cheer about, but there are reasons to believe that both its corporate and retail bankers in Scotland should feel more secure about their employment prospects.

One the primary reasons RBS remains in the red is the 5.5bn loss coming out of its non-core divisions (ie, those already earmarked for closure) and the costs associated with the asset protection scheme (APS). Core divisions - those businesses it intends to continue with - actually posted an operating profit of 7.4bn.

More encouragingly for those bankers based north of the border is the progress being made in the UK retail and corporate divisions. Retail banking profits soared from 229m to 1.4bn and in UK corporate profits improved to 1.4bn from 1.1bn.

Redundancy announcements coming out of RBS have been commonplace over the last 12 months, of course, and this is evident in the retail bank where staff numbers have fallen by 1,700 to 23,800.

Perhaps more surprising, though, is the fact that headcount has increased in its UK corporate arm. Staff numbers now stand at 13,100, up from 12,300 in 2009.

Chief executive Stephen Hester conceded that: "Our ability to attract, retain and motivate the best people is still not what we want it to be."

But the bank has still managed to attract controversy by allocated 950m for bonuses. Much of this will be awarded to its investment bankers, and isn't immediately available, as the bank is paying just 2k a head in March.

Such a small sum is also unlikely to sit well with corporate bankers in Scotland, particularly when there's increasing options elsewhere in banks where the government doesn't have such close control of the purse strings.

In reality, though, RBS's bonus payments are decidedly more generous. RBS has a vesting schedule, which will see another instalment paid in June 2011, then further instalments in June 2012 and June 2013.

Last year, 50% was paid in June 2010 and 25% each in June 2011 and June 2012. This year, as our UK site points out, this schedule has been improved, particularly at the junior end, to reflect deferral scheme in other banks.