HSBC staff fear jobs cull as more London roles move to Paris Exclusive: Bank begins new round of staff cuts in compliance arm as more London roles set to be re-located to Paris

HSBC is considering large-scale jobs cuts and relocating more roles away from London to Paris as it continues its restructuring of the business, i can reveal.

An insider at the bank, which employs 235,000 staff worldwide and almost 50,000 in the UK, has told i that moves towards making a major announcement on job losses have begun, with some departments already being affected by redundancies before the programme is rolled out to other parts of the business.

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Any further job losses would be on top of the hundreds in the investment banking division, which were announced earlier this year. The redundancies form part of the bank’s strategy to focus on its most profitable business lines, known internally as Project Oak.

He added that he expected the cuts to be in the thousands.

Support sessions

Earlier this week, HSBC offered staff support sessions, which provide advice on dealing with work stress in tough economic times.

The source also said many of the vacant positions at the GCB 4 level – commonly known as vice president roles in other banks – have been taken down from its internal careers board as part of a potential hiring freeze.

The support sessions, details of which have been seen by i, offer HSBC staff at the GCB 4 level and below the opportunity to attend a four-hour “mental resilience” course “designed to equip individuals to be robust in times of change” and to help them “continue to deliver high performance in ambiguous business conditions”.

The course details also say that it will help employees “learn to build a positive and powerful energy source that is resilient to outside influences” and “learn how to approach the future with fortitude”.

The source said: “A hiring freeze and the support sessions are the pieces of the jigsaw the bank always puts in place before announcing a major round of job cuts. It’s what’s happened in the past, and it appears to be happening again. Within the building it is thought that the job cuts will be across the business.”

The redundancy programme is already underway within the group’s Regulatory Compliance section, which was set up after the global financial crisis to help the bank prevent the type of decisions that led to the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

It is understood that the role of the Regulatory Compliance team is being taken over by the Financial Crime Compliance department, and at least some of the roles moved to Paris.

Global losses The last time HSBC made such deep job cuts was in 2015, when it shed 10 per cent of its staff around the world, with 8,000 being made redundant in the UK. In 2003, the bank also slashed UK numbers by 8,000, when it transferred work to service centres in China, India and Malaysia. This time the bank is following other financial giants such as Deutsche Bank, which is shedding 18,000 staff, and Citibank, which announced the loss of hundreds of jobs in its trading division earlier week. The cuts come as the world’s biggest banks have had revenues squeezed as confidence in the markets has been hit by issues such as rising global trade tensions and Brexit. While HSBC’s latest cuts are not expect to be on the scale of Deutsche, they are understood to be in the thousands, with London workers taking a significant hit.

No-deal Brexit fears could lead to Paris moves

The insider said that as well as fears over thousands of jobs cuts worldwide, “many more hundreds of jobs” would be moved from London to a virtually empty office that the bank has in Paris.

Last year, HSBC announced it may move up to 1,000 jobs from its UK head office in Canary Wharf to Paris over concerns around Brexit, but in April this year said it had put those plans on hold, with less than 100 jobs having moved so far. However, following the escalation of UK Government preparations for a no-deal Brexit, HSBC is understood to have accelerated the moves from London to the Cœur Défense skyscraper in the business district of Paris.

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Any job losses at HSBC would follow cuts at German group Deutsche Bank, which is shedding 18,000 staff, and Citibank, which announced the loss of hundreds of jobs in its trading division earlier this week. The cuts come as the world’s biggest banks have seen revenues squeezed. Confidence in the markets has been hit by issues such as rising global trade tensions and Brexit.

In its last set of annual results, HSBC did increase profit and revenue last year, although its performance fell short of analyst expectations. Net profits were $12.6bn (£10.4bn) in 2018, 30 per cent higher than in 2017 but below analyst forecasts of $13.7bn.

A spokeswoman for HSBC declined to comment on the specifics on any jobs cuts, but said: “Business and function lines constantly re-evaluate their needs to ensure they have the right roles in the right locations to deliver for our customers and stakeholders globally.”