A global shake-up of HSBC operations yesterday lacked details of the specific impact on individual countries, including Malta. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

HSBC will shed almost 50,000 jobs in a global shake-up, but it is unclear whether this will have an impact on its Malta operation.

Half the staff cuts will come from the sale of businesses in Brazil and Turkey. The other half will result from cutting about 10 per cent of the remaining 233,000 staff by consolidating IT and back-office operations and closing branches.

The announcement was made yesterday but, according to bank sources in Malta, the group has not yet given a regional or country breakdown of the impact the restructuring process will have.

“As is the case with such strategy plans, the devil is in the detail and the detail has not yet been made available,” one source said.

In Britain alone, about 7,000 to 8,000 job cuts are expected.

The cuts will leave HSBC with about 208,000 full-time-equivalent staff by 2017, down from 258,000 at the end of 2014, although the bank said it would be hiring in growth businesses and its compliance division.

The shake-up will also see HSBC axe its investment bank and cut the assets of Europe’s biggest lender by a quarter to simplify and improve its sluggish performance.

The bank will evaluate whether to move its headquarters from London to Asia, likely Hong Kong, based on a set of 11 criteria that include economic growth, tax systems and the ability to recruit staff.

HSBC said it would complete the review of the possible move by the end of the year.

The cuts are part of a second attempt by CEO Stuart Gulliver to boost profits since he took the helm at the start of 2011. The previous effort was foiled by high compliance costs, fines, low interest rates and sluggish growth.

HSBC said it would cut its assets on a risk- adjusted basis by $290 billion by 2017.

That will include a reduction of a third, or $140 billion, in global banking and markets, its investment bank.

The investment operation will account for less than a third of HSBC’s balance sheet, down from 40 per cent now.

HSBC confirmed the planned sale of its businesses in Turkey and Brazil, adding it would keep a presence in the latter to serve corporate clients. It aims to overhaul underperforming businesses in Mexico and the United States to improve returns.

The bank said it was targeting growth in Asia by expanding its insurance business and its presence in China’s Pearl River Delta region.

Additional reporting from Reuters