HSBC has embarked on a cost-cutting drive that threatens up to 10,000 jobs, as its new interim chief executive Noel Quinn seeks to make his mark on the bank.
The plan represents the lender’s most ambitious attempt to rein in costs in years, said two people briefed on it, who said it would result in a substantial reduction in HSBC’S headcount of roughly 238,000.
“We’ve known for years that we need to do something about our cost base, the largest component of which is people — now we are finally grasping the nettle,” said one of the people.
“There’s some very hard modelling going on. We are asking why we have so many people in Europe when we’ve got double-digit returns in parts of Asia.”
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Any job cuts implemented as part of the latest plan would come on top of 4,700 redundancies that HSBC recently announced amid what it described as “an increasingly complex and challenging global environment” characterised by low interest rates, trade conflicts and Brexit uncertainty.
A large chunk of those job cuts were implemented under a scheme known as “Project Oak”, which tried to encourage executives and managers to shrink their teams by offering funding from a central pot of money to cover redundancy payouts.
HSBC declined to comment. HSBC’S latest cost-cutting drive, which will focus mainly on high paid roles, comes as global banks make tens of thousands of staff redundant as the industry contends with low or negative interest rates and weak investment banking revenues.
Deutsche Bank in August said it would eliminate 18,000 roles as part of a radical overhaul. Barclays, Société Générale and Citigroup have also announced job cuts this year.
