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Standard Chartered to cut 15,000 jobs

Standard Chartered, the London-headquartered bank with operations in Asia, has confirmed 15,000 job losses as part of a $5.1bn (£3.3bn) ‘strategic review process’.

The bank, which initially announced around 1,000 jobs cuts in October, said it started seeing decline in 2012 after 10 consecutive years of income and profit growth

In a statement on the London Stock Exchange, Standard Chartered said its board now deems the portfolio to be “capital and cost inefficient in the current regulatory environment”.

The job cuts were announced alongside an Interim Management Statement, which reports $239m loss before tax for the three months ended 30 September, compared to a pre-tax profit of $1.5bn for the same period last year.

Bill Winters, who replaced Peter Sands as Standard Chartered’s chief executive in June this year, said the market conditions were “disappointing” and a change in strategy is needed as quickly as possible.

“The plans we have outlined today significantly reallocate resources to change fundamentally the mix of the Group towards more profitable and less capital intensive businesses.” Winters commented. “We are assertively managing costs to create investment capacity, reallocating capital to improve returns, and improving the Group’s risk profile.

“This comprehensive programme of actions will result in a lean, focused and well capitalised international bank, poised for growth across our dynamic and growing markets in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.”

The bank is hoping to utilise more than $100bn with the restructuring programme, which will include terminating ‘low-returning relationships’ and cutting around 15,000 jobs.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .