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(Alliance News) - FTSE 100-listed HSBC Holdings PLC has delayed the majority of the job cuts planned as part of its overhaul, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.
The pause was caused by the ongoing uncertainty around the spread of Covid-19.
In a memo to all staff on Thursday, seen by the FT, new Chief Executive Noel Quinn wrote that the bank had decided to "pause, for the time being, the vast majority of redundancies associated with this [restructuring] programme".
The redundancies will be deferred, the paper said, and the lender has put in place a hiring freeze.
https://www.ft.com/content/47186ac9-c0c9-43b9-a232-9995c46e4918
HSBC was planning to let go of 35,000 staff over the next three years as part of a major restructuring announced in its 2019 results.
In February, HSBC said it plans to simplify its group structure, which involves the consolidation of the back and middle office to a single model for Commercial Banking and Global Banking, merging Retail Banking and Wealth Management & Global Private Banking into a new Wealth & Personal Banking division, and reducing geographic reports from seven to four at group executive level.
To achieve this, the bank said it expect to incur restructuring costs of USD6 billion and asset disposal costs of USD1.2 billion for the period ending 2022.
These plans are also on hold while the banking giant deals with the fallout caused by the coronavirus, with current market conditions making it difficult to dispose of assets.
On Tuesday, interim chief Noel Quinn was named as the bank's new permanent boss.
"Noel has proven to be the outstanding candidate to take on a role permanently that he has performed impressively on an interim basis since August 2019," Chair Mark Tucker said at the time.
Quinn said there is "much that remains to be done" at HSBC.
By Paul McGowan; paulmcgowan@alliancenews.com
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