Royal Bank of Scotland's corporate and institutional banking division remained loss-making for the seventh straight quarter in the three months to September 30 – and even stripping out costs related to litigation and a further downsizing of the unit that began in February, its core operations were in the red.

The UK bank's group chief executive Ross McEwan in February revealed plans to abandon a standalone investment banking model and to either exit or substantially reduce the unit's trading operations in central and eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the US. The move came as McEwan described the unit's returns in 2014 as "unacceptable".