Royal Bank of Scotland has abandoned its approach of having a standalone investment bank and unveiled plans for further cuts to the business, after what group chief executive Ross McEwan described as "unacceptable returns" last year.

The UK bank, which reported its full-year results for 2014 on Thursday, revealed it will pull out of markets, or trading business in central and eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and "substantially reduce" its presence in Asia and the US. Over half of the roughly 2,000 staff at the bank's offices in Stamford, Connecticut - which houses a large trading floor - will be cut, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.