HSBC follows Lloyds and announces 700 job cuts

HSBC has announced it is cutting 700 UK jobs, including IT, on the same day Lloyds Banking Group revealed plans to slash 15,000 roles.

One hundred of the HSBC jobs being cut are in IT operations and head office functions such as HR, finance and compliance.

The bank is re-organising part of its UK business to reflect the changes required by the Retail Distribution Review at the end of 2012, which it said will “fundamentally alter” the way that all financial institutions provide and charge for financial advice.

The majority of the cuts (460 roles) will affect the bank’s financial advice team in the retail banking and wealth management division. The company said that the total job cuts represents a little more than one percent of its total UK workforce of around 55,000.

Joe Garner, head of HSBC in the UK, said that workers will redeployed where possible.“I firmly believe that these steps are necessary if we are to continue to keep HSBC on a firm and sustainable footing, not just for today, but also fit for the future.

“We will work extremely closely with all those colleagues affected by today’s announcement so that we can try to find them alternative roles, thereby minimising the number of people who actually leave the HSBC Group,” he said.

At the same time, HSBC is creating 100 new roles, which includes senior financial planning adviser and mortgage adviser roles.

However, the Unite trade union claims that the real number of job cuts is more, at 840.

“Unite is flabbergasted that HSBC has chosen today to announce over 840 staff cuts. HSBC has decided to bury its own bad news on the same day [as Lloyds announced 15,000 job losses],” said David Fleming, Unite national officer.

The union claims that HSBC’s job cuts will generate savings of around £9 million for the company.

“Is it a coincidence that this figure is the equivalent to the bonus of Stuart Gulliver, HSBC chief executive, due to be paid later this month?” Fleming asked.

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