Hundreds of city bank workers set to lose jobs
Hundreds more UK bank workers are expected to lose their jobs after US giant Citigroup announced plans to cut 11,000 jobs worldwide.
Citi, which employs 9,400 staff in Britain, said the majority of jobs will go at its institutional clients group and global consumer banking divisions.
The job losses are the latest in a spate of redundancies in the financial sector as it battles against the weak economy and increasing regulation.
Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and HSBC have all announced job cuts this year.
Citi declined to give a specific figure for UK job losses but it is thought to be in the hundreds.
America’s third largest bank said the decision will save £560m (€689.35m) next year and £680m (€837.06m) per year from 2014.
But the move will trigger pre-tax charges of around £620m (€763.20m) in the fourth quarter of 2012 and around £62m (€76.32m) in the first half of 2013.
Michael Corbat, who succeeded Vikram Pandit as Citi’s chief executive in October, said: “These actions are logical next steps in Citi’s transformation.”
The company said that about 25% of the charges for the fourth quarter related to its securities and banking division, with another 10% in transaction services.
Another third would come from reductions in its global consumer banking division, where 6,200 positions would be cut.
The banking group said it would be selling or scaling back consumer operations in Pakistan, Paraguay, Romania, Turkey and Uruguay, while Brazil, Hong Kong, Hungary, South Korea and the US will also be hit.
Citi said it intends to focus on the 150 cities that have the highest growth potential in consumer banking and would be left with more than 4,000 retail branches around the world after the changes take place.
