Standard Chartered to cut 1000 senior jobs

The cull shows the scale of the overhaul Mr Winters is planning at the Asia-focused bank, which he has said needs to speed up decision-making on costs, people and strategy, and improve its risk management and profitability.

Winters also said the bank would reduce the number of clients for whom it works, restricting them to those who “value our capabilities and compensate us accordingly”.

Reuters reported the planned job cuts earlier.

A Standard Chartered spokesman confirmed the existence of Mr Winters’ memo, saying: “He has made it clear that kick-starting performance is a priority, and we are not standing still”.

“Our situation requires decisive and immediate action”, the CEO said, as quoted by Reuters. Winter’s plan reportedly also includes disposals of businesses in areas, where Standard Chartered is “not differentiated” or “not critical to a core strength”. “Each member of the management team has a mission to drive through improvements in our returns and part of this will be further streamlining of our organisation, eliminating management layers and duplication of roles”.

Standard Chartered said the latest memo was following through on this.

Standard has been hit by a double whammy of fears over a slowdown in emerging markets and the slide in commodity prices.

From next year, Winters will receive an annual fixed allowance of around £800,000, topping up his annual salary of £1.15million, pension contribution of £460,000 and £35,000 in benefits.

That would mean 1000 posts from the level of managing director up to board executives would go.

Analysts have forecast a capital gap of between $4 billion and $10 billion will be revealed when the Bank of England releases its second round of stress tests on December 1.

Revenues also fell sharply and losses from bad loans jumped to £1.1billion, up from £640million in the same period previous year.