The Royal Bank of Scotland has confirmed that its chairman Sir Philip Hampton warned of  “further impacts on employees” at the bank’s annual general meeting, where he spoke about the bank's financial performance over the last year and its current recovery plan.

According to the general annual meeting statement issued by the bank, Sir Philip addressed the possible loss of further jobs, as the bank makes changes for the purpose of its recovery plan, which aims to increase its overall financial performance.

“We've got to have our branches where our customers are, not always where we have had them for decades. We have work to do over the coming years to get our business in the right shape to deliver these ambitions, and that could mean further impacts on employees,” said Sir Philip. 

RBS has been faced with controversy over the past five years, and as well as axing more than 37,000 jobs overall, as previously reported last December, RBS paid a total of £381 million (around $580 million) in penalties after agreeing with authorities in the US and UK to settle charges of manipulating LIBOR and other key market trading rates.

Earlier this month, RBS said that its group pre-tax profit for the first quarter of 2013 stood at £826 million, compared with a loss of £2.2 billion in the final quarter of 2012. Group operating profit was £829 million, up 50 per cent from the final quarter of 2012, driven by a reduction in non-core losses.