UNION leaders have warned of further job losses and branch cuts after Royal Bank of Scotland confirmed it was shutting nine more north of the border, putting 45 jobs at risk.

Unite say the closures, all in Edinburgh would cut the number of branches in the Scottish capital by half and the bank was embarking on "death of a thousands cuts".

And they warned that there is more to come as the new round of cuts do not take into account that RBS has failed a crucial stress test and is being forced to bolster its financial strength by £2 billion.

The bailed-out bank, which owns NatWest and is 73 percent owned by the taxpayers, would be the riskiest large lender in a recession, the Bank of England said.

Experts predict a further cost and restructuring plan in February for a bank considered the weakest link in UK banking.

The latest branch cull means that nearly 40 of its Scottish branches will have closed between May, last year and June of next year.

Unite said the fresh closures would affect 116 staff and is in addition to 16 branch closures announced in the summer.

The branches affected include Blenheim Place, which will shut at the end of May 2017, Gilmerton, Juniper Green, Comiston, Davidson Mains, Portobello, Edinburgh University, Castle Street and Chesser, all of which will shut in June next year.

Unite regional officer Lyn Turner said the branch closures were "devastating news" and warned: "If you take into account the failure of the stress test, and the way they have to get out of it by cutting a further £2 million, that only means deeper cuts and more job losses."

The Bank of England noted that “RBS faces a range of costs and risks” that could require further action from the bank, with RBS admitting that “additional management actions may be required until RBS’s balance sheet is sufficiently resilient to stressed scenarios”.

RBS said the new branch closes come after careful consideration of factors including regular branch usage, adn the alternative ways customers can now bank, including online.

The bank said simple transactions undertaken in RBS branches have fallen by 36 percent since 2010, while the use of online and mobiles for banking has increased by more than four times.

An RBS spokesman said: “Many more customers are choosing to do their banking using mobile and online banking because it's more convenient and easier and reflects the way they live their lives.

!Branches will remain an important part of our service, but we will have fewer and these will evolve as customer behaviour does – changing from the place where customers go to undertake transactions, to the place they go for help on big life decisions, such as taking out a mortgage or starting up their own business.

!It's a tough decision to close a branch because some of our customers prefer to do their everyday banking face to face and we will help them with the alternative ways to bank in their community. We are committed to ensuring we provide a range of alternative ways to bank, tailored to the needs of our communities and reflective of the way our customers live their lives."

But Mr Turner warned the bank was continuing a "slash and burn" approach to community branches and feared RBS management was gambling with its future.

"If RBS continues to turn its back on customers and communities, then customers and communities may end up turning their back on them," he said.

“We literally all have a stake in RBS, and the bank’s actions should be a huge concern for all of us.”

Unite says that there is now a need for government action to tackle job losses in the banking sector and to make sure that communities have access to local banking.

Mr Turner said: “Since 2008, Scotland has lost 19,000 jobs in finance and insurance. That is a catastrophe.

“We need the Scottish and UK Governments to start holding RBS and other state-supported banks to account for their flawed strategies, and we also need to look urgently at how we can make sure that communities across Scotland have access to local banking.”