GLOBAL BANK HSBC Holdings is cutting 1,100 jobs in its investment banking operation, or 4 per cent of the unit's total, as it weathers the global financial crisis.

"We're doing it because of market conditions and the economic environment, and our cautious outlook for 2009," Hong Kong-based spokesman Gareth Hewett said yesterday.

"Markets continue to be challenging and difficult but our strategy leaves us well-positioned for the next wave of global growth, when it comes," he said.

The cuts add to more than 80,000 job losses across the banking landscape in the past 18 months as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression deepens. It has caused unprecedented change on Wall Street and the demise of venerable firms such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.

The HSBC jobs are in front- and back-office operations. About 500 of the cuts will be in Britain and about 300 more will be elsewhere in Europe and the United States. About 100 are in Hong Kong, where the bank's large Asian operations are based.

HSBC will be left with about 26,000 staff in its global banking and markets division. It employs 335,000 people across the bank.

The wholesale banking division accounted for about one-quarter of HSBC's pretax profit in each of the last three years, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The unit's pretax profit fell 35 per cent to $2.7 billion in the first half from a year earlier.

HSBC was one of the first banks to feel the sting of the subprime mortgage crisis in the US and has booked writedowns or losses of $18.7 billion since the start of the global credit crunch last year.

In August, the bank posted a 28 per cent fall in first-half pretax profit to $10.2 billion as it took a $14 billion hit from bad debts on US home loans and asset writedowns.

In its global banking and markets business, pretax profit fell 35 per cent in the first half to $2.1 billion, although that was a 37 per cent increase from the second half of 2007.

"There is no change in strategy at global banking and markets, which is to be a leading emerging markets-led and financing-focused wholesale bank," Mr Hewett said.

- (Reuters/Bloomberg)

Irish operations: 10 job losses

TEN STAFF from HSBC Ireland's back-office operations will lose their jobs as part of the international restructuring.

HSBC Ireland yesterday confirmed that the jobs were going under a global restructuring by the bank of its global markets division.

"HSBC Ireland confirms that the announcement by HSBC Global Markets of a worldwide restructuring of its business would have a small impact on one of its four Irish businesses."

HSBC Ireland has four separate businesses employing 700 people across the island, about 600 of them in the Republic.

A bank spokesman said yesterday it was consulting the staff concerned and was "looking at every effort to redeploy them to other business lines within the group".

The 10 workers are employed by HSBC Securities Services.

"HSBC Ireland remains committed to building its business in Ireland through its securities services, corporate banking, private banking and insurance businesses," the company said.

The job losses are the first at the bank in Ireland in the credit crunch, but a subsidiary, HFC Bank, announced last month it would close its Irish operations, with the loss of 40 jobs.