Job cuts fear at HSBC after profits tumble

HSBC’S interim boss has announced plans to shake up the bank after a dismal performance over the summer.

noel Quinn, who is attempting to make his mark as he auditions for the top j ob, admitted third-quarter results from large swathes of the bank were ‘not acceptable’.

The 57-year-old has promised to speed up plans to ‘remodel’ the bank as it grapples with the US-China trade war, Brexit uncertainty, and political protests which are rocking its key market of Hong Kong.

Staff fear the lender, which employs more than 237,000 around the world, will axe thousands of jobs. HSBC was already rumoured to be planning up to 10,000 job cuts.

Quinn said: ‘There is scope throughout the bank to clarify and simplify roles, and to reduce duplication.’

But he declined to give any more information on how many roles would be cut, and where, until the bank reveals its fullyear results in February.

HSBC’s chief financial officer Ewen Stevenson said: ‘We have been deliberately vague at this point, because we have started a piece of work. But it’s not s uff i ci ently advanced to announce anything yet.’

Profits at HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, slid 18pc to £3.7bn in the three months to September compared to the same time last year. Despite the pro- democracy protests still raging in Hong Kong, profits in HSBC’s asia business, where it makes most of its money, actually climbed 4pc to £3.6bn.

Quinn praised staff in the division, despite the criticism which HSBC received earlier this year after it denounced the anti- Beiji ng protests in full-page adverts taken out in Hong Kong newspapers.

But Quinn said yesterday: ‘We are committed to supporting both Hong Kong and the UK through the challenges they both face.’

Most of the restructuring at HSBC appears to be focused on its US and continental Europe arms. The performance in these parts of the business was ‘ still well below acceptable levels’, Quinn said.

Eric Moore, a fund manager at Miton, said: ‘This is pretty harrowing given the years of restructuring that shareholders have already had to endure.’

Shares slid 3.7pc, or 23p, to 594.4p.