HSBC to cut 300 senior jobs in bid to streamline sprawling bank

HSBC is cutting as many as 15 percent of its 2,000 senior operations managers worldwide as it tries to streamline management and reduce costs.

The cuts of between 200 and 300 senior positions will fall across business units and locations, according to Reuters.

HSBC has been downsizing its sprawling global operations for several years to improve shareholder returns.

This week it sold its Canadian branch for £8.4bn and announced the closure of a further 114 branches in the UK and the possible sale of its New Zealand business.

Chief executive Noel Quinn said yesterday that HSBC has identified £1.4 billion in additional cost savings it will implement next year.

He also insisted that a campaign to break up the bank by its largest shareholder, Chinese insurer Ping An, was neither led by Beijing nor backed by other investors.

I don’t believe it is politically motivated. On the contrary,” he told the FT Global Banking Summit. ‘In Asia, in Hong Kong, in China, we are seen as an important international bank.

“Based on the conversations we’ve had, that’s a position that’s still valued and people want us to take it.”

Referring to Ping An’s campaign, Quinn added: ‘The conversations I’ve had with other institutional investors are that they don’t believe there’s an economic case for breaking up the bank.

“They believe there will be value destruction on a material level, not value creation.

The case for change is not a universally supported case for change and I don’t believe it is a politically based case for change.

“Our customers don’t like it either.”