French banking group BNP Paribas is planning to axe around 250 jobs from its workforce in Switzerland over the next two years.
The redundancies are aimed at offsetting the impact of dull global growth and improving efficiency.
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The bank also highlighted negative rates, increasing digitalisation and local challenges in the financial sector as the reasons behind the move.
Most of the cuts will be in Geneva, across front and back office operations in multiple business verticals including wealth management operations. According to Reuters, some of the lay-offs are said to affect the company’s corporate and institutional banking operations.
Overall, BNP Paribas employs around 1,400 people in Switzerland.
At the same time, BNP Paribas initiated an employee consultation period in an effort to minimise the job cuts.
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By GlobalDataReuters quoted the bank as saying: “BNP Paribas in Switzerland, like other banks, currently finds itself facing major challenges: negative rates, a contraction in margins and a speeding-up of technology investments, all against the backdrop of a contrasted global growth environment within Europe.
“The plan is part of a wider transformation currently under way at Group level and would allow BNP Paribas (Suisse) SA to increase its efficiency, in particular by better leveraging the synergies provided through the Group.”
Earlier this year, BNP Paribas announced plans to reduce costs across its corporate and investment banking units. The French bank also lowered its profitability target for next year.
The wealth and asset management arm of BNP Paribas registered a pre-tax income of €170m in Q3 2019, a 19% increase from the corresponding quarter of 2018.
However, at a group level, the bank’s net income attributable to equity holders dropped 9% year-on-year to €1.94bn.
