Barclays to cut 100 jobs at its private banking business

PRIVATE BANKING across Europe continued to retrench yesterday, as Barclays said it was cutting 10 per cent of its workforce in this area in the face of steep falls in the stock market.

Elsewhere, Merrill Lynch's head of private banking business in Britain and Ireland, John Maitland, left the group. He will not be replaced.

The bank has already put through a series of redundancies in its private banking operations in Europe, though it declined to put a figure on the job losses.

A spokesman for Merrill Lynch said: "We continue actively to manage our resources, including expenses and headcount, in line with the business environment. Based on our current assessment of the environment, we believe the bulk of staff reductions is behind us."

Barclays said it had already axed some private banking staff and a cost savings programme would mean losing about 100 of its 1,000 employees in this area. Some 40 of these redundancies will fall in London. Geneva is Barclays' other major private banking location.

Private banking serves high net worth individuals, typically people worth $1m (pounds 635,000) or more, providing the rich with personalised banking and investment facilities and advice.

Andrew McDougall, a spokesman for Barclays, said the bank was not losing customers in private banking. Lower investment returns had led to rich individuals putting less money into equities, he said.

Private bankers generate a fee based on the level of funds an individual invests through the bank. "Market conditions have been very difficult and we have got to manage our costs against our income," Mr McDougall said.

In May, Schroders shed 19 jobs including some top posts a year after creating a private bank. Citigroup, the world's largest financial services company, has announced European private banking job cuts, while Deutsche Bank has also followed suit. Lehman Brothers, meanwhile, is refocusing its wealth management business on asset management and hedges funds.

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