HSBC to axe at least 10,000 jobs: report

Global banking giant HSBC is likely to announce on Monday plans to axe at least 10,000 jobs in the coming year, says a report by Britain's Sky News.

Quoting sources, the report said the cutbacks would be part of a strategic overhaul by the bank's new chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, and a "vast majority of these 10,000 job cuts will be outside the UK".

The London-headquartered bank, which employs more than 300,000 people worldwide, has a major focus on Asia.

HSBC, which is scheduled to announce its half-year results tomorrow, is expected to reveal "disappointing figures" for the six months to June 30, 2011.

"HSBC is anticipated to report pre-tax profits of $10.9 billion [6.7 billion pounds] for the period, down from $11.1 billion [7 billion pounds]," the report said.

British banking majors such as Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland are also expected to reveal a drop in profits in their interim updates over the next week.

The global financial industry recently embarked on a wave of job-cuts amid rising costs, market volatility and disappointing results.

Swiss bank Credit Suisse has announced plans to cut about 2,000 jobs. Standard Chartered, Lloyds, Goldman Sachs and UBS are among the other banks that have announced job cuts in recent months.

As per Gulliver's multibillion-dollar savings programme, HSBC expects to reduce its costs by up to $3.5 billion by 2013 and the savings would be invested into fast growing markets around the world, especially Asia.

In May this year, HSBC had said that it would add 2,000 employees in China and Singapore over the next five years.