HSBC to start cutting top banker roles as it reveals increase in profits
HSBC has said it will cut senior banker roles over the coming months in a bid to reduce costs after revealing a nearly 10 per cent jump in profits.
Chief executive Georges Elhedery said the banking giant was “moving at pace” with a major restructuring announced last week.
The reorganisation will see the number of geographical units reduced from five to two, with the formation of “eastern markets”, incorporating Asia and the Middle East, and “western markets”, comprising the UK, Europe and Americas.
Mr Elhedery stressed the changes will make the bank “simpler and faster” by axing the doubling-up of roles at a senior level.
The bulk of the cost savings will come from trimming the number of top bankers working at HSBC over the next few months.
Mr Elhedery said: “The primary reason for this reorganisation is to make us a simpler, leaner organisation with faster decision-making and stronger empowerment of our frontline people.
“There will inevitably be some de-duplication of frontline governance and therefore inevitably be the reduction of some senior roles in the organisation.”
HSBC will not put a figure on its expected cost savings until February, alongside the release of its 2024 financial results, but the boss said it “will be moving at pace and making organisation decisions over the next few months”.
The updates come as the bank said it generated a pre-tax profit of $8.5bn (£6.6bn) between July and September, nearly a tenth more than the $7.7bn (£5.9bn) made over the same period last year.
This came in far higher than analysts’ expectations, who had been expecting a profit of $7.6bn (£5.9bn) for the third quarter.