The RBS AGM will offer shareholders the opportunity to vent their frustration at the bank’s management.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) today (3 April) gave warning that it expects to axe more jobs worldwide, in addition to the 2,700 jobs cuts in the UK announced earlier this year.

RBS Chairman, Sir Philip Hampton, in his pre-AGM statement, also called for an end to the “public flogging” the company has been receiving, in light of the economic crisis and the Sir Fred Goodwin pension controversy.

In February, RBS recorded a loss of £24.1 billion in 2008, which is the largest annual loss in UK corporate history.

The redundancies will occur worldwide in a bid to reduce annual costs by £2.5bn in the next three years but the exact number of job cuts has yet to be divulged. RBS stated that compulsory redundancies would be kept to the absolute minimum.

Sir Philip said: “Many difficult decisions lie ahead. Chief among these will be the need to achieve the annual cost reduction.

“All costs will be scrutinised from our back offices to our highest offices. Clearly this will mean that some of our people will lose their jobs.”

The acquisition of Dutch bank ABN Amro is being held by the company as one of the main catalysts for RBS’s difficult year along with mistakes made by former management. Sir Philip defended the bank’s UK staff stating that the majority earned less that £21,000 a year and were not responsible for the company’s downfall.

The RBS AGM being held at 1 pm today in Edinburgh will provide investors the opportunity to vent their frustration at the company and suggest courses of action for the bank’s future. Discussion will inevitably turn to pensions, despite it being currently too late to amend Sir Fred’s £703,000 a year pension.

There is now a clause in the new Chief Executive Stephen Hester’s contract ensuring he will receive no reward if he leaves the company through failings of his own. This is in stark contrast with Sir Fred’s case as his pension pot doubled to nearly £17 million in exchange for leaving the company.

In the pre-AGM statement, Sir Philip also stated that legal advice is being pursued to see whether the decision about Sir Fred’s pension could be reversed.

Sir Philip added that the public’s anger at the bank would only exacerbate its problems, not resolve them. He called for focus to be brought back to the “good and enduring people and businesses of RBS” and to let them get on with fighting the way back to success.

RBS shares fell by 1.1p to 27.40p in early trading today.