Chopping its work force by nine per cent will save Butterfield Bank $13 million annually, the bank’s chairman and chief executive officer has told analysts.

Michael Collins said: “During the third quarter, we made a difficult decision to implement a group wide restructuring programme that will result in a nine per cent reduction of our global workforce.

“This is intended to mitigate inflationary and other expense pressures.

“The projected $13 million annualised cost savings, once the programme is fully implemented, should partially offset earnings at risk from lower interest rates in the future and inflationary pressure on expenses.”

He added: “The restructuring plans considered operational risk mitigation and new business processes and incorporates the placement of some additional non-client-facing functions in our service centres.

“We expect to continue to operate in all of our jurisdictions without significant changes in products and service offerings.”

Mr Collins was speaking during the bank’s quarterly earnings call, which took place a day after Butterfield announced third quarter net income of $48.7 million.

He also spoke about the progress of Butterfield’s purchase of part of the Credit Suisse Trust business from the Swiss banking giant.

That deal, announced in September of last year, saw Butterfield acquire CST’s businesses based in Guernsey, Singapore and the Bahamas.

Mr Collins said: “The rolling integration of the Credit Suisse trust asset acquisition progressed as planned during the third quarter.

“Our third closing saw us acquiring assets in the Bahamas and the fourth closing incorporated a total of 50 trust structures, primarily in Guernsey, with an additional five in Singapore.

“We are very pleased with the progress so far and the quality of clients on-boarded in the deal and continue to expect a final closing of the transaction this quarter, and we are tracking towards the $8 million to $10 million in added trust revenues from the deal in 2024, along with an estimated $6 million of expenses.”