Union seeks answers over ‘dreadful’ HSBC plan

THE new boss of banking giant HSBC is planning to slash up to 10,000 jobs as part of a major cost-saving drive.

Noel Quinn, who took over on an interim basis in August, is looking to Europe for redundancies among the bank’s 238,000 workforce, according to reports.

It would come on top of around 4700 job cuts announced in August by HSBC, which has its headquarters in London.

Its business in Asia, which accounts for nearly 80 per cent of its profits, isn’t expected to be heavily hit by the cull. HSBC declined to comment. Dominic Hook, national officer at the union Unite, said the reported job losses were “dreadful”. He said the union had “raised urgent questions with the management of the bank in order to get vital answers on behalf of our members working within HSBC”.

Several global banks have been scaling back their workforces, with Deutsche Bank, Barclays, Societe Generale and Citigroup all announcing job cuts this year.

In August, HSBC said it would target high-paid CULL Bank to target high-paid staff in round of cuts staff in a round of cuts, meaning a two per cent reduction in numbers would reduce the wage bill by four per cent. Chief finance officer Ewen Stevenson said at the time it would affect “most parts of the bank”.

HSBC’s first-half profits jumped 15.8 per cent to £10.2billion. It was boosted by a strong performance in Asia and at its retail bank and wealth management divisions.

However, profits fell at its investment bank due to global uncertainty.