Royal Bank of Scotland will this week kick-start the integration of ABN Amro's investment bank into its global markets division in a process likely to trigger the loss of about 7,000 jobs out of a combined workforce of 28,000.

The Scottish bank, which last week announced a £12bn rights issue, has so far made only relatively modest cuts to ABN's investment banking unit, which it acquired in October as part of the €71bn (£56bn) break-up bid for the Netherlands lender.