It said less than 5 per cent of the head office jobs to go were downsized through compulsory redundancies.HSBC justified its decision on the basis that places such as India are much more cost effective because salaries are so much lower than in Britain.”We are an international business and have a responsibility to manage ourselves internationally.”There are completely different cost ratios overseas and if we did not take advantage of that we would not be being responsible to our shareholders,” the spokesperson said.HSBC employs 218,000 globally, including 53,000 in the UK. A spokesperson for HSBC said the bank “completely understood” the trauma the plan could cause its employees. It has set aside £4m to finance counselling and career advice to those who wish to take it up.HSBC added it would try to keep compulsory redundancies to an “absolute minimum” by not replacing staff who leave and by offering people other positions at the bank where appropriate. It is profit before people.”Mr O’Neill vowed to fight the move “tooth and nail”.

HSBC plans to make 1,500 people redundant next year, with a further 2,000 to go in 2005 The remaining 500 will be cut in 2006. Unifi has managed so far to ensure there have been no compulsory sackings but the “world’s local bank” has shown that if the job can be done cheaper somewhere else then they will move it. A series of large employers, including almost all of Britain’s largest banks, have shifted operations to Asian countries or have said they are thinking seriously about doing so. Those already to set up major operations in the area include BT, ebookers and Prudential.Financial union Unifi reacted furiously to HSBC’s decision, which comes after its announcement earlier this year to slash 1,400 jobs from its UK head office.Rob O’Neill, a Unifi official, said: “The gloves are off. HSBC will add new centres to ones it already has in India, Malaysia and China.The move – the single largest outsourcing of jobs to Asia by a British company – accelerates what has already become a familiar trend in the past couple of years. HSBC, Britain’s biggest bank, will shed 4,000 jobs in the UK in the next two and a half years by shifting processing and call centre jobs to Asia in a bid to slash costs.
The move will mean the closure of four of HSBC’s centres, in Sheffield, Birmingham, Swansea and Brentwood in Essex.

They all denied the profits were excessive compared with other parts of their businesses.One way in which the credit card industry is expected to become more transparent is over annual percentage rates (APRs). At the moment banks calculate the rate in different ways, making it particularly hard to compare products. HBOS, which is an amalgam of Bank of Scotland and Halifax, said about half of its £3bn of profits were from retail banking, with credit cards making up one part of that amount. MBNA said it made £209m in profits from its European cards business in Europe. Barclays later said Mr Barrett, who will step up into the chairman’s seat at the end of next year, made the comment in the context of discussing what the best methods of long-term borrowing were. Other attendees at the committee hearing did not manage to wriggle off the hook.