The UK's state-rescued Royal Bank of Scotland could axe as many as 14,000 jobs by 2019 amid a huge restructuring effort, the Financial Times reported in its Wednesday edition.

The newspaper said the lender could shed as much as 80 percent of its investment banking division, where a total of 18,000 people are employed right now.

The Edinburgh-based bank had already announced last week that it would close down investment banking in 25 nations in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, while western European countries such as Germany would not be affected.

Fighting an uphill battle

RBS spokespersons declined to comment on the report on likely job losses, but had earlier agreed the restructuring process would be thorough and far-reaching.

RBS posted losses after tax totaling 3.47 billion pounds ($5.4 billion, 4.7 billion euros) last year, marking the seventh consecutive year in negative territory.

The only silver lining was that the full-year performance was much better than in 2013 when the bank logged a net loss of almost 9 billion pounds.

hg/bk (AFP, dpa, Reuters)