UBS Slashes 3,500 Jobs to Save 2 Billion Swiss Francs

UBS Slashes 3,500 Jobs to Save 2 Billion Swiss Francs

Swiss bank UBS plans to slash around 3,500 jobs, almost half of them from its investment bank, as it seeks to shave some 2 billion Swiss francs from annual costs by the end of 2013.

Well at least they are extending the layoffs to the end of 2013, though I wonder if this process may need hastening given developments across the banking sector and falling profits.

UBS [UBS 13.19 -0.12 (-0.9%) ] had already said it would cut jobs when it posted a lower-than-expected second-quarter profit last month as its underperforming fixed income business weighed....

Around 45 percent of the cuts will come from UBS's investment bank, 35 percent from wealth management & Swiss bank, 10 percent from global asset management and 10 percent from wealth management Americas....

Investment banks worldwide have been hit by slow trading due to the debt problems in the euro zone and United States, as well as regulations aimed at forcing banks to hold more capital to protect them from future shocks after the 2008 global financial crisis.

UBS joins a growing line of banks, including HSBC [HSBA-GB 517.40 6.40 (+1.25%) ], Barclays [BARC-GB 149.25 3.00 (+2.05%) ], Goldman Sachs [GS 106.51 -5.25 (-4.7%) ], and Credit Suisse, in slashing thousands of jobs.

Looks like a perfect storm building over the banking sector again with regulations and debt crises taking a significant, and potentially crippling toll on banks around the world. Now we have a situation where banks are slashing thousands of jobs in heightened efforts to maintain profitability. I understand that borrowing costs for banks has also increased again, at least that is what some banking CEOs in Australia have reported. This is one sector that is displaying some radical evasive shifts if not just to "improve operating efficiency", but minimise or avoid disaster.

First HSBC, then BoA, now UBS. Hmmm...preparing for something massive? Global war? The D word?

Yeah don't know about war or other disaster, but seems much of the banking sector is in crisis.