The year 2014 promises to be just fascinating. Early dates in the diary, from a parochial UK viewpoint, include 11 and 27 February, when Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) will release their annual results. And a bit more. There is Project Cook, the internal name at RBS for CEO Ross McEwan’s strategic review, writes Douglas Blakey

The review will incorporate the bank’s strategic investment plans, internal re-organisation and job rationalisation plans such as ending the bank’s group structure and hopefully guidance about possible further divestments. There may also be news of RBS reorganising how its SME business is administered and delivered. With the bank on a mission to cut costs, appease its politician critics by being more touchy-feely, expect some spin about business lending decisions being made at a local level.

RBS’ pre-results trading update made for gloomy if somewhat predictable reading. It has still not managed to get its sums right as regards the full extent of PPI claims and has required to set aside a further charge of £465m, taking the running total of PPI provisions to £3.1bn. It is setting aside a further £500m for interest rate hedging product claims to bring this running total up to £1.25bn; this figure at first glance appears to be distinctly optimistic/unrealistic depending on one’s point of view, given the large number of such claims that RBS has under review.

We are getting used to RBS posting a loss: fiscal 2013 will make it six years in a row and analysts now expect a full year loss in the £7.7bn to £8.0 bn range. While the UK newspapers and rentaquote politicians will make plenty of noise about bonuses – McEwan and his eight most senior executives will receive no bonus for 2013 – of rather more interest will be McEwan’s investment priorities and divestment plans. While he is at it, might we expect to hear about a new head of retail banking at RBS:the acting head of retail has been in situ now for six months give or take.

As for divestments, there will be speculation about Coutts, the private banking arm. Its new chairman is politically well connected: former Conservative MP William (now Lord) Waldegrave was a recent house guest of the UK prime minister at the PM’s country retreat, Chequers. It would be fascinating to know if the pair simply shared political and business gossip, reminisces about their old school Eton perhaps or if their conversation touched upon RBS? Outspoken Conservative right-winger John Redwood has made the call that RBS get out of investment banking entirely.

Then there have been calls for RBS to dispose of its US-based securities unit, formerly known as RBS Greenwich Capital. On branches rationalisation, major UK retail banks such as RBS, Barclays and Lloyds may cast a glance towards the US. The year kicked off with SNL’s report that US bank branch cuts have been accelerating with almost 1,500 branches being shuttered in 2013. Bank of America ended the year with 5,200 units; post-crash it had 6,000 and in the last 18 months alone it has axed 460 outlets.

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In the same period, its investment in its mobile banking channel has paid off with regular users growing from 11m to 14m. There will be all manner of a political storm if Barclays or RBS announces branch closures on such a scale as Bank of America. As January drew to a close, both the BBC and The Financial Times reported that Barclays would announce plans to close 400 outlets or one branch in four. Not so, said Barclays.

The bank issued a curt statement, rubbishing the FT and BBC claims, stressing that no numbers would be disclosed on 11 February relating to branch closures. Barclays is now operating around 1,600 branches, down from 2,130 in 2000, 2,020 in 2005 and 1,700 in 2008. That equates to exactly one in four branches having closed in the past 13 years. With bank branch closures accelerating – the growth of digital, branch transactions declining by around 30% in the past four years, and Barclays need to get its cost-income ratio down to the mid 50s from the mid 60s – a further 400 branch closures seems a fair guestimate.

Meantime, Lloyds is the most overbranched, with 2,200 outlets including its Bank of Scotland and Halifax-branded units. It has said that it is committed to maintaining the existing network for 2014. So we may have to wait until 2015 before Lloyds kicks off its own branch rationalisation strategy. It is only a matter of time.