YEREVAN, June 9, /ARKA/ HSBC Holdings, Europe's largest bank by market value, said it will lay off up to 25,000 jobs around the world to reduce costs and shift its center of gravity back toward the fast-growing Asian economies where it started operations 150 years ago.

According to a press release, the bank, which is currently based in London, is "undertaking a significant reshaping of its business portfolio" and "redeploying resources to capture expected future growth opportunities."

"The world is increasingly connected, with Asia expected to show high growth and become the center of global trade over the next decade," said Stuart Gulliver, HSBC's chief executive. "We recognize that the world has changed and we need to change with it."

HSBC, which has operations in over 70 countries and around 51 million customers, said it intends to sell its operations in Turkey and Brazil, a move that will see its workforce reduce by around another 25,000. Although planning to dispose of its operation in Brazil, HSBC said it plans to maintain a presence in that country to serve large corporate clients in their international dealings.

Overall, HSBC aims to cut costs by $4.5 billion to $5.0 billion by the end of 2017 and reduce the number of full-time employees by around 10 percent, equivalent to between 22,000 and 25,000.
A large chunk of those lost jobs will be in Britain, where up to 8,000 jobs could go. The bank hopes many of the cuts will come from attrition, by not filling posts that are vacated.

In 2014, HSBC saw its post-tax profit fall to $14.7 billion from $17.8 billion the year before, largely because of a series of fines, settlements and customer compensations in Britain. -0-