BRUSSELS: Europe’s biggest bank, is planning to cut 8,000 jobs in the UK as it tries to reduce costs and simplify its business.
The bank has 48,000 UK workers and will make cuts in both its retail and investment banking operations.
A total of 25,000 jobs could be axed globally, meaning close to 10% of HSBC’s 266,000 workers will go.
The bank will also rebrand its UK High Street branches but is yet to decide on a new name.
Options could include reviving the Midland Bank brand, which it bought in 1992, or adopting the name of its UK online bank, First Direct.
‘Treated fairly’
Chief executive Stuart Gulliver said he wanted to ensure that customers made a distinction between HSBC’s investment and retail banking operations.
The bank is being forced by new government rules to formally separate the two businesses.
Dominic Hook, national officer with the union Unite, called on HSBC to achieve any job cuts through voluntary means and natural attrition. He said the bank had not had a voluntary redundancy scheme in the past.
“It’s really sad that all our members, all the hard work they’ve done to try to get the bank back working properly after all the scandals of the last few years, are going to be paying with their jobs,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
