HSBC Makes Managers Vie for Jobs Amid CEO Streamlining

HSBC reportedly wants hundreds of managers to reapply for jobs at the bank’s new division.

Interviews for positions at HSBC’s corporate and institutional banking (CIB) arm have already begun, Bloomberg News reported Monday (Nov. 18), citing sources familiar with the matter.

These interviews — part of new CEO Georges Elhedery’s push for greater efficiency — have essentially pitted senior staff from HSBC’s commercial banking unit against those from the global banking and markets business in competition for CIB jobs.

In the end, several hundred managing directors will be let go, sources told Bloomberg. HSBC will also phase out its use of the general manager titles given to some of its most senior staff. Those employees will now be known as “managing directors,” which Bloomberg describes as a “common rank” at many financial services firms.

These changes come weeks after the U.K.-based banking giant announced what it called a “simplified organization structure,” which nonetheless indicates major changes beginning at the start of next year.

HSBC plans to reorganize into four distinct business units including the aforementioned CIB division, while replacing its 18-member group executive committee with a new group operating committee made up of 12 members.

As Bloomberg notes, the bank has shrunk its staffing levels by more than 100,000 workers in the last 16 years, as past CEOs worked to streamline its worldwide operations.

Elhedery, who has been with HSBC for nearly 20 years, was named chief executive in July following a short tenure as chief financial officer.

Since then, rumors have circulated that the bank would merge its commercial and investment banking divisions, and had plans to trim its management layers.

In other banking news, PYMNTS spoke last week with Amount Chief Revenue Officer Len Eschweiler about “deposit drift,” an increasing pressure facing financial institutions (FIs).

“It’s a gradual migration of funds from traditional accounts, and banks need to focus on it, otherwise they suffer death by 1,000 cuts,” he said. “Customers on both the consumer and the [small- to medium-sized business (SMB)] side are getting competitive offers all the time from FinTechs and competing banks.”

Banks and credit unions have an interest in landing sticky, long-lived deposits, Eschweiler told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, as they struggle with volatility in their commercial real estate portfolios. And so, one FI’s deposit drift can become a rival bank’s gain.

“They’re looking for ways to hold onto their customers and expand their customer bases,” he said. “That’s where deposits come into the picture in a meaningful way.”