Ulster Bank plans to shut between 30 and 40 branches across the island of Ireland by the end of next year, with the loss of up to 18 hundred jobs.
The figures emerged at an investor briefing today by the parent company Royal Bank of Scotland.
The move has been criticised by the finance union, the IBOA - who's General Secretary Larry Broderick says the announcement has come out of the blue for staff.
Mr. Broderick said the union is now refusing to co-operate with the closures.
In a seperate announcement, 220 staff and 60 contractors are being made redundant at a Hewlett Packard facility in Dublin.
The HP call centre, which operates services across Europe on behalf of Barclaycard, will close its centre in Sandyford by March of next year.
However, HP says every effort will be made where possible, to redeploy workers to other parts of its business.
In a statement this afternoon Hewlett Packard also says its fully committed to continuing to hire new staff in Ireland and is still on schedule to build its new state of the art facility at Ballybrit in Galway.
