Royal Bank of Scotland has announced that it plans to cut more than 440 jobs as part of a broader restructuring operation.

In a statement, the Edinburgh-based lender said that many of the jobs affected deal with business loans. Jobs would also be moved to India.

“We realise this will be difficult news for staff and we will do everything we can to support those affected," RBS said. "All roles which require customer contact will remain in the UK,” it added.

RBS was bailed out with £45bn of public money at the height of the financial crisis in 2008. The Treasury at the time took a 72 per cent stake which it has kept ever since.

In April RBS posted a £259m profit for the first three months of 2017, recovering from a near £1bn loss in the same period last year.

After stripping out fines and settlements, the bank reported that its core operating business made a profit of £1.3bn in the quarter to the end of March, up slightly from just over £1bn last year, but it continues to be dogged by vast legal costs and compensation bills.

In February it set aside £5.9bn to pay for past wrongdoing.

Last month the bank already said that it would be cutting dozens of jobs and offshoring more to India in a bid to become a smaller, simpler and more UK-focused bank.

And it has also been forced to make sweeping changes in the way that it operates as a result of evolving consumer behaviour too.

In March RBS said that it was closing over 150 bank branches and cutting hundreds of jobs, in response to a surge in the popularity of online and mobile banking. It said at the time that 30 RBS and 128 NatWest branches would be affected, impacting 470 jobs.