Facundo Arrizabalaga/European Pressphoto Agency
An HSBC bank in London.
LONDON — HSBC said Tuesday that it planned to cut about 1,150 jobs in Britain as the bank adjusts to new regulations for wealth advisers.
HSBC said it would eliminate 3,166 positions but create 2,017 jobs, mainly in its wealth management and advice business, after new rules took effect requiring advisers to hold additional qualifications. The job cuts are separate from a cost-cutting plan that HSBC announced in 2011, when it said it would reduce about 30,000 positions over the next three years.
“The changes reflect the changing nature of customer behavior and regulation,” HSBC said in a statement.
The new rules, which came into place in Britain at the beginning of the year, mean that financial advisers must have to be more transparent about how much their advice costs and how customers would pay for it. Previously, advisers often received commissions from the providers of certain products, such as pension plans or insurance.
HSBC is among a handful of British banks that had to set aside money to compensate some clients because the banks wrongly sold them an insurance product. The so-called payment protection insurance scandal shed additional light on the need to change the rules for financial advisers, who were under pressure to sell products.
Ian Gordon, an analyst at Investec, said other British banks might be considering similar steps because of changing regulation but that the job cuts are also an attempt to reduce costs further. “Ongoing revenue pressures are refocusing efforts on cost reduction,” he said.
Stuart T. Gulliver, who took over as HSBC’s chief executive in 2011, has embarked on a wide-ranging plan that he said would bring down costs by as much as $3.5 billion and improve profitability. The bank closed businesses as it exited some markets, for example retail banking in Russia.
In December, HSBC agreed to sell its stake in China’s Ping An Insurance to a Thai conglomerate for $9.4 billion. It sold its credit card unit in the United States to Capital One Financial for $2.6 billion and its unit in Panama to Bancolombia for $2.1 billion.
Despite the cost-cutting, some analysts are skeptical that HSBC would reach its 12 percent return-on-equity target, a measure of profitability, in the medium term. The company is to update investors on its strategy next month.
Tuesday’s announcement prompted Dominic Hook, national officer of Unite, Britain’s largest workers’ union, to say his organization might ask HSBC staff members whether they want to take part in a strike ballot. “HSBC is making staff suffer in the search for ever greater profits,” Mr. Hook said in a statement on Unite’s Web site. “The bank’s behavior is a disgrace. After making proposals to slash pensions, holidays and sick pay the bank is now slashing even more jobs.”
Bank officials say the changes were necessary to meet new regulatory rules.
“I understand change is always unsettling, particularly for those directly affected,” Brian Robertson, chief executive of HSBC Bank in Britain, said. “However, I also firmly believe what we are proposing is essential in order for us to fulfill our customers’ expectations.”