London, May 17 (IANS): The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has that it will cut 1,400 jobs over the next two years as part of plans to restructure its retail head office operations in Britain, a media report said.

No customer-facing staff will be affected, but support staff for the bank's retail arm including those working in communications, marketing and customer analytics are expected to be affected by the job losses, Xinhua cited RBS as saying in a press release.

"To serve our customers well we have to ensure that our resources are focused on the things that matter most to them," Ross McEwan, chief executive officer of the bank's UK Retail, was quoted as saying.

"Regrettably, we can only do that by restructuring the way we work in head office so that every effort is concentrated on supporting our customers and the frontline staff that serve them," said McEwan.

"This is clearly difficult news for our staff and we will do everything we can to support them, including seeking redeployment opportunities wherever possible to ensure compulsory redundancies are a last resort," he said.

With about 8,000 staff as the fourth largest employer in Edinburgh, RBS also announced that it would invest 175 million pounds (around $270 million) in Scotland over the next three years in areas such as branch refurbishments, improved complaints handling, quicker and simpler processes for account opening and mortgage processing and improved technology in branches.

John Swinney, Scottish cabinet secretary for finance, employment and sustainable growth, said: "The Scottish government will do everything we can to provide support and help to those affected by job losses in Scotland through the Finance Sector Jobs Taskforce and our Partnership Action for Continuing Employment."