PARIS (Reuters) - BNP Paribas presented a voluntary redundancy plan to unions on Thursday that calls for up to 675 job cuts at its corporate and institutional bank in France as part of a broader cost-cutting push.
BNP Paribas said in February it planned to save more than 1 billion euros by 2019 to boost profitability and help to mitigate the impact of rising regulatory and compliance costs.
The French bank is one of several European banks cutting back in investment banking where tough market conditions and increased regulation have put pressure on them to rein in costs.
BNP had around 6,000 staff in the CIB division in France, the bank said, and more than 30,000 employees in this business in nearly 57 countries, according to its annual report.
BNP Paribas said on Thursday it would support staff affected to look for other jobs within the group and planned to create new 221 jobs in its French investment bank, in particular, related to the digital sphere.
It said it would implement the reorganisation of CIB on a country by country and case by case basis.
BNP Paribas said when it reported annual results in February it wanted to reduce low-return activities and portfolios and make adjustments in all regions, a process the bank had already started in the Middle East, Africa and Russia.
The French bank has also said it aims to gain market share in investment banking as rivals retreat to develop less capital-intensive and fee-driven businesses.
(Reporting by Maya Nikolaeva and Julien Ponthus; editing by Jason Neely and Jane Merriman)
