British banking group HSBC says it will cut 30,000 jobs worldwide by 2013 and sell almost half its retail bank branches in the U.S., part of a new strategy to focus on fast-growing emerging markets. The bank, which reported a better-than-expected 3% increase in pretax profits to $11.5 billion in the six-month period ending in June, has already cut 5,000 jobs this year. Another 25,000 will be slashed by 2013, spokesman Patrick Humphris said. HSBC currently employs around 296,000 people worldwide. Humphris declined to give details of where the job cuts would be but said the group is still hiring in emerging economies such as Brazil and Mexico.
The move echoes similar announcements by other global banks, such as Credit Suisse, UBS and Goldman Sachs, who in recent weeks said they needed to trim payrolls to adjust to tougher market conditions. As part of its restructuring, HSBC will sell 195 retail banking branches in the United States to First Niagara Bank for around $1 billion. Most of the branches to be sold are in upstate New York; six are in Connecticut. The bank is still dealing with the legacy of bad loans in the U.S. from the 2003 acquisition of consumer lender Household International Inc. The acquisition made HSBC the biggest subprime lender in the United States at the time, which resulted in billions of losses to HSBC leading up to the financial crisis of 2008.
