HSBC cut its largest number of senior bankers last year, spending nearly $70 million in the process, the Financial Times has revealed.

The paper’s analysis of company filings showed that Europe’s largest bank axed 134 of its most senior employees, described as “material risk takers”, last year, totalling almost 10 per cent of its previous cohort.

The process cost the bank a total of $67.5 million in severance packages, and was its largest annual cull since 2008, “significantly” exceeding cuts by other European lenders, the FT added.

The cuts formed part of chief executive Georges Elhedery’s ongoing transformation plan for the bank, which aims to make the bank “a simple, more agile, focused bank built for a fast-changing world”. Elhedery said in May that the overhaul was nearing completion.

One person close to HSBC told the FT that the senior-level cuts were part of a “broader trend” across the bank and were not confined to the investment bank. In May, Elhedery said that much of the cost reduction achieved by the bank was due to the “deduplication” of senior roles across the group.

The FT reported that these cuts contributed to the “biggest cull in high-paid bankers” by large European lenders since the Covid pandemic in 2020, according to company filings.

Santander and Deutsche Bank reported the largest reductions after HSBC, cutting 49 and 48 material risk takers, respectively, with BNP Paribas shedding 39 and Barclays removing 32 over the same period.

Société Générale had the largest average severance payout at €870,000, followed by Santander and Deutsche bank at €736,000 and €437,500 respectively. 

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