Despite the cuts, RBS has been hiring fixed income traders

As European investment banks like Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse unveil new plans to pull back from fixed income trading, a surprising source of recruitment is emerging – Royal Bank of Scotland.

In the past few weeks, RBS has brought in some senior traders to work on fixed income products. Most notably, Marc Falconer, global head of medium term notes at BNP Paribas, joined the bank earlier this month in a similar position.

Falconer joined BNP Paribas as head of MTNs and private placements in 2009 and was previously head of rates structuring Americas at Citi in New York.

It’s another significant hire for RBS, which lest we forget, is in the process of stripping out 14,000 jobs from its investment bank and plans to implement ‘significant’ cuts by the end of 2015.

In September, Jason Harwood, the former head of financials trading at Nomura, joined its debt trading business along with former Credit Agricole trader Amreetpal Summan.

David Thorne, an FX e-trader who worked for RBS until moving to J.P. Morgan in 2012, has rejoined the bank and Joshua Cohn-Burrows, who worked in FX sales, also signed up earlier this month.

RBS unveils its Q3 results tomorrow, so may provide an update on cuts, but it’s still hiring.