Weekly Global News Wrap Up: RBS to cut 792 jobs and 162 branches; Nordic banks' shares plunge in Q1

And Deutsche Bank may also axe 10% of its US workforce.

From CNBC: Britain's Royal Bank of Scotland is to cut around 792 jobs and shutter 162 branches following a review of its branch network in England and Wales, the state-backed lender said on Tuesday. RBS, which is more than 70 percent owned by the British taxpayer following a 2007 bailout, said the redundancies and closures were necessary because many of its branches were too close to one another - within 0.6 and 2.5 miles - and because changing consumer behaviors have seen footfall numbers plummet. The cuts follow the closure of 259 branches announced in December last year, which resulted in 680 job losses, and similar moves by Britain's biggest mortgage lender Lloyds Banking Group.

From Bloomberg: Nordic banks, once coveted as the best-run and best-capitalised in Europe, appear to be losing their luster. After publishing first-quarter results, banks based in Sweden and Denmark are among the year’s worst performers in the Bloomberg index of European financial stocks. “Despite operating in some of the fastest growing economies in Europe, shares in Nordic banks have under-performed European peers over each of 1, 3, 6 and 12 months,” said Philip Richards, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence in London. “The lenders still trade at a modest price/book premium, but the difference is closing fast.” Richards says it’s a combination of slowing loan growth, years of negative interest rates and intensifying competition that have “cast a cloud over their revenue outlook.”

From Reuters: Deutsche Bank is expected to cut around 1,000 jobs or 10 percent of its workforce in the United States, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday, as the German lender scales back its global investment banking ambitions. The bank has already axed 400 U.S.-based employees this week - of which around three quarters worked in its trading business and the rest in corporate finance, according to a second source who is a senior U.S.-based Deutsche Bank official.