StanChart cuts jobs to lower costs 

Chief Executive Bill Winters this month branded the bank’s income and profit unacceptable, as below-forecast third-quarter results underlined the challenges facing his overhaul. The job cuts will be rolled out beginning this week across all the major business centres starting with Singapore and Hong Kong, one of the sources told Reuters. All the sources declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media.
“We are making our corporate and institutional banking division more efficient,” a Standard Chartered spokesman said, without revealing how many jobs are to be axed. “Removing duplication in roles and managing our costs to protect planned investments in technology and people means that a small number of existing roles will be impacted.”
Former JPMorgan investment banker Winters has already moved to close the stock trading business and raise $5.1 billion in capital.
These efforts have paid off for Standard Chartered’s bottom line, and its third quarter result marked a second consecutive quarter of profit after it swung to an annual loss for 2015, when it was hit by the costs of revamping its management team.
Winter also said in November last year the bank would cut 15,000 jobs. It was not immediately clear whether the cuts in corporate and institutional banking formed part of that. The latest headcount cut marks the first major move by former senior HSBC banker Simon Cooper who joined in April as chief executive of corporate and institutional banking.
Cooper has been working to overhaul and streamline the structure of the corporate and institutional banking division, the largest unit of the bank accounting for more than 46 per cent of its operating income in the six months ended June.