Wealth management jobs mostly safe despite bank cuts
Despite ongoing concerns from the Finance Sector Union (FSU) about job cuts and offshoring at the major banks, most of the banks either deny there are set plans to cut jobs, or say they have no plans to reduce numbers in their wealth management divisions.
ANZ recently announced plans to cut around 130 jobs, mostly in the area of retail banking, and there has been ongoing concern from the FSU about Suncorp moving a number of commercial insurance jobs offshore.
In early November Westpac announced close to 200 mostly IT-related roles would go, while NAB signalled 135 jobs would disappear.
An ANZ spokesperson said it was possible there would be further job cuts in the future, but that there were currently no plans to reduce the number of roles in wealth management.
The spokesperson added that the staff who lost their jobs would be able to apply for other roles within the company.
In September, ANZ's general manager advice and distribution Paul Barrett spoke of growing the group's advice network by about 50 financial planners per year.
In December, he highlighted growth in the group's phone advice service, My Advice.
Suncorp Life said in a statement that market conditions remained challenging but it was too early to predict what impact this might have on jobs.
"There will be efficiencies gained from the simplification of the business through the 31 December 2011 merging of our two life companies, Asteron Life and Suncorp Life & Superannuation.
How this will impact employees will be better understood in due course," Suncorp stated.
A BT Financial Group statement said BT anticipated a decrease in staff numbers this year, but did not have a specific target on jobs reductions.
NAB did not comment on the wealth management division specifically, but said that in a company of its size "staffing numbers will fluctuate in various parts of the business at times due to the completion of programs, outsourcing of some projects and continuing focus on efficiency".
The Commonwealth Bank said a continuous drive to increase efficiency may result in redundancies from time to time in some areas, while in other areas more staff may be needed, but that "there is no target or short-term plan for major staff reductions".
Bendigo and Adelaide Bank managing director Mike Hirst said the bank currently had no plans to shed jobs and tried to work with staff to find ways of reducing costs.
"There is no doubt the industry is under pressure to maintain profit levels, but we believe our bank has good growth opportunities which continue to be realised," he said.
NAB, ANZ and BT all indicated attempts would be made to find other roles within the business for staff that had been cut.
FSU national secretary Leon Carter said although none of the major banks had directly indicated wealth management would be affected, the FSU expected it would come under a fairly high level of scrutiny because the capacity to make money in wealth management is now more difficult than it has been in the past.
Carter was highly critical of the tendency to look at staff cutbacks as a first resort when it came to cost cutting, which he said resulted from banks being determined to maintain record profit levels.
"No-one is saying 'if we don't do this something bad will happen' - it's simply about maintaining a profit line," he said.
"It's a ridiculous expectation that bank profits have to continue at record levels when the world is clearly in dire financial circumstances."
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