City of London headhunters this morning said they believed the UK capital in general, and the equities business more specifically, would escape the worst of thousands of potential job cuts at RBS's global banking and markets division.

They were speaking following a report in the Financial Times this morning in which John Hourican, the head of RBS's global banking and markets division, said that the unit could see up to 2,000 people let go as it completed the integration of Dutch bank ABN Amro, a deal he called a "massive, bold undertaking at exactly the wrong moment".