NatWest cuts 1,400 jobs as quarterly profit rises to £2.2billion

The drive to streamline operations saw approximately 1,000 full-time roles cut during the quarter alone.

Alongside the workforce reductions, NatWest said it had delivered cost savings of about £420million.

The bank said it was making progress in its ambition to become a simpler, more technology-focused organisation, with the savings helping to reduce the proportion of income spent on running the business.

Net interest income, the gap between what banks earn on loans and pay out on deposits, reached around £3.6billion in the quarter.

That represented a jump of nearly nine per cent compared with the previous year.

NatWest is not alone in benefiting from elevated interest rates.

Fellow high street lenders Lloyds and Barclays have also reported rising income in the current environment.

While the job cuts have trimmed the workforce, the recent purchase of wealth manager Evelyn Partners has added roughly 2,200 employees to the group.

That acquisition has pushed NatWest’s overall headcount higher despite the ongoing redundancy programme.

Investment in technology, including artificial intelligence tools, has supported the cost-cutting effort.

The bank has recently trialled an AI-powered spending insights assistant and a fraud detection agent for credit card customers.

NatWest’s cost-to-income ratio, which measures how much the bank spends to generate its revenue, fell to 45.7 per cent for the year so far.

Chief executive Paul Thwaite said: “As we help more customers to save and invest, buy a home or expand their businesses, we continue to see broad-based growth in our three customer franchises, with lending, deposits and assets under management all increasing during the quarter.”