BNP Paribas will cut its investment banking staff in Britain by around 5% in 2016. News reports said this part of the bank’s plan to cut costs in a division hit by tighter regulation and a slump in revenue. The bank plans to axe 233 British jobs but will also be hiring 60 employees there – bringing the net headcount down to 3105 in 2016 from 3278 in 2015. The bank will in turn hire 179 people in lower-cost Poland, increasing its staff there by about half to 507 employees. The bank will also cut down its headcount in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland. The bank has said it is targeting more than one billion euros of cost savings at its investment bank over the next three years, but outside of France, it has yet to put any numbers on resulting job losses around Europe.
