HSBC Holdings plans to shed about 35,000 jobs — 15 per cent of its global workforce — over the next three years, the bank said yesterday.

Any potential impact on HSBC Bermuda is not yet clear.

“There is no geographical breakdown regarding potential job losses,” an HSBC spokes- person said yesterday.

“We refer to the global announcement on hsbc.com.”

The job cuts announcement came as HSBC announced a pretax profit of $13.35 billion for 2019, down by one third from the year before.

HSBC said it planned to merge its private banking and wealth businesses, and axe European stock trading.

In the United States, it intends to cut about a third of its 224 US retail branches and target only international and wealthier clients.

Noel Quinn, the group’s interim chief executive, told Reuters: “The totality of this programme is that our headcount is likely to go from 235,000 to closer to 200,000 over the next three years.”

HSBC Bermuda’s profitability may count in its favour when decisions are made on where cuts are to be made.

Although its 2019 results have not yet been released by the group, the local branch generated adjusted net income of $140 million for 2017 and $139 million in 2018.

Mark Watkinson, then chief executive officer of HSBC Bermuda, told The Royal Gazette two years ago: “If you look at our record, we remain an important part of the group. Our adjusted return on equity is 17 per cent, which is above the 10 per cent target for the group.”

He added: “For us, Bermuda is a good market.”