Banking giant HSBC Holdings (NYSE:HSBC) is eliminating 10,000 jobs as part of a major cost-cutting initiative.
The bank, one of several European lenders planning to shrink its workforce, will eliminate most of the jobs in Europe in order to concentrate more of its business in Asia where it has seen double-digit growth in recent years.
The cuts, which would affect about 4% of the bank’s global workforce of about 238,000 people, comes as HSBC interim Chief Executive Officer Noel Quinn ramps up an aggressive cost-cutting strategy. The job cuts come on top of 4,700 redundancies announced earlier this year.
Other European banks, including Deutsche Bank AG, Societe Generale SA and Barclays Plc, are also cutting thousands of jobs as low interest rates and a slowing economy weigh on their bottom lines. HSBC generated almost 80% of its pre-tax profit in Asia in the first half of 2019.
Born as the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp. in 1865, HSBC has been shifting resources to Asia, especially China, as part of a strategy initiated by former CEO Stuart Gulliver.
HSBC has remained committed to its expansion in Asia even with the U.S.-China trade war and Hong Kong’s ongoing protests.
