Royal Bank of Scotland Group’s securities arm is completely shutting down parts of its U.S. mortgage business. Earlier the group had said it would only scale back. Exiting commercial real estate, commercial mortgage bond trading and government-backed home loan securities is a necessary part of repositioning the bank’s US business, according to a spokesperson of the bank. RBS, which has been retrenching in capital markets amid new regulations and a desire to focus on its U.K. consumer and business bank, said in May it was planning to shrink its Stamford, Connecticut-based U.S. investment bank by cutting hundreds of jobs within 18 months, including in its mortgage securities and special situations groups. The bank plans to retain a team focused on originations of non-mortgage asset-backed securities.
