ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND is expected to unveil its losses of more than £7 billion for 2009 but will still extend enormous bonuses to its investment bankers.

Huge losses have been suffered on loans to businesses, on property deals and on complex derivatives. Once exceptional items are taken into account, these should be cut to £5 billion.

However, RBS did not comment to a telephone message seeking a comment left on its off-hour press office line.

State-controlled RBS is in the last phase of negotiations with the Treasury over its bonus scheme. However, the talks are hoped to finish within 10 days, ahead of the publication of the bank’s full-year results.

As per the scheme, the Treasury is expected to extend its nod for a total bonus pool of about £1.3 billion despite the expected losses.

The move is cites to trigger a fresh disgruntlement and frenzy over payments at banks that were bailed out by the taxpayer.

RBS has lost more than 1,000 of its top performers to rivals in the past year. It has also sacked hundreds more associated with the worst of the record losses of £28 billion the bank racked up in 2008.