Royal Bank of Scotland has promoted Peter Nielsen to the new role of global head of markets, as part of a reshuffle of staff in the division resulting from a decision to scale back its investment banking business after a record loss last year.

Nielsen was previously responsible for rates, local markets, currencies and commodities. In his new role he will also take on group-wide oversight of the equities, credit, ABS trading, institutional sales, research and strategy and ECM syndicate.