By Steve Slater
LONDON, April 23 (Reuters) - HSBC is cutting 1,149jobs in Britain in another round of redundancies to save moneyand slim down Europe's biggest bank.
These are part of a 3-year revival plan by Chief ExecutiveStuart Gulliver to reduce costs, raise returns and focus onprofitable areas.
Banks across the world are shedding thousands of staff totry to increase profitability, improve technology and cope withtougher regulations brought in after the financial crisis.
In Britain, banks have axed thousands of jobs in response tonew rules on how they sell investment products. HSBC said onTuesday the latest cuts reflected the changing nature ofcustomer behavior and regulation. The bank said its changes meancustomers will have a single advisor for their banking andwealth management.
HSBC said 3,166 UK jobs would be affected by the latestplans, but the bank expects to redeploy just over 2,000 of thestaff. It adds to 2,200 UK job cuts made a year ago..
The bank employs just over 47,000 staff in Britain, or about40,000 excluding its investment bank and head office.
The cuts will mostly come from wealth management, where thebank said it is shifting advisors into its consumer retailbanking business from June. Some 942 relationship managementroles will go, including commercial banking financial advisorpositions.
Gulliver has cut 34,500 global jobs since taking over inearly 2011, or 12 percent of staff, which has slashed annualcosts by $3.6 billion. He is expected to say next month he istargeting another $1 billion of annual savings, which couldresult in another 5,000 redundancies this year, analystsestimated.
The latest round of cuts will also affect staff in supportroles and commercial banking, where HSBC said it is cutting thenumber of business specialist roles and increasing the number ofinternational business managers.
Gulliver has axed jobs across North America, Latin America,Europe and Asia-Pacific, excluding Hong Kong. He said heexpected to shed 30,000 jobs by taking out bureaucracy andunderperforming businesses when he laid out a three-year revivalplan in May 2011, but said he also wanted to add 15,000 infaster growing areas.
Although he has surpassed his target to slice $3.5 billionoff annual expenses, costs accounted for 62.8 percent of incomelast year, well above another target to get that ratio below 52percent.
HSBC Holdings (HSBA)