London, Aug 2 (IANS) The HSBC bank will cut about 25,000 jobs globally by 2013 despite its good performance in the first half of this year, Xinhua reported.
The bank reported a pre-tax profit of $11.5 billion for the first six months of 2011, up three percent year-on-year, and 45 percent higher than the second half of 2010.
HSBC said earlier this year that it would cut 5,000 jobs in Latin America, the US, Britain, France and the Middle East.
‘There will be further job cuts,’ HSBC CEO Stuart Gulliver said. He estimated that around 25,000 staff would leave by the end of 2013.
The total cuts took up about 10 percent of HSBC’S overall work force around the world. The cuts form part of Gulliver’s plan to slash costs and focus on Asian operation.
The bank said Sunday it will sell $195 US branches to First Niagara Financial for about $1 billion in cash, and would shut down 13 more. It also intends to sell its US credit card portfolio, which has over $30 billion in asset.
HSBC said it will close its retail banking operations in Russia and Poland as well as sell three insurance businesses so as to free up $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion by 2013.
Share price of HSBC at London stock market surged over four percent by midday Monday.
