UP TO 900 jobs are under threat at Ulster Bank, which is due to announce lay-offs north and south of the Border today.
The announcement will be the first in a series of large-scale redundancies expected in Irish banks this year. AIB, the country’s biggest bank, is likely to reveal plans to cut its workforce by 2,000 over the coming months.
Unions and management at Ulster Bank were in talks over redundancy plans yesterday and an announcement on the proposed cuts is widely expected to be made today.
The Royal Bank of Scotland-owned financial institution refused to comment last night, but sources said that it is planning to cut a total of about 900 jobs, with up to 600 of those due to go in the Republic and 300 in the North.
Sources at Ulster said that the bank is seeking to cut costs by €80 million, with €60 million of that to come from its payroll while the balance will come from savings made elsewhere in the organisation.
The Irish Bank Officials’ Association, the main union at the bank, was unable to put a figure on the likely number of job losses there.
Its general secretary, Larry Broderick, confirmed that the association was in talks with management at Ulster Bank.
The bank laid off 1,000 workers in 2009 and now employs more than 6,000 staff. A reduction of 900 would be a 15 per cent cut in the numbers employed.
Its corporate division, which provides services to businesses rather than consumers, is likely to bear the brunt of many of the proposed cuts.
A spokeswoman said yesterday that Ulster Bank did not comment on speculation. It later issued a statement saying that any announcements pertaining to jobs are made directly to staff.
It was not known yesterday if the bank is going to seek voluntary or compulsory redundancies. Sources suggested that voluntary cuts are more likely.
Ulster Bank has not received any bailout cash from the Government, and is not part of the Nama process, as it is not Irish-owned.
However, it played a high-profile role in the property lending boom which ended in the 2008 financial crisis.
The bank led a syndicate of three financial institutions which lent the cash to fund developer Séan Dunne’s purchase of the Jurys Doyle Hotels site in Ballsbridge, Dublin for a record-breaking €379 million in 2005.
It also partnered Anglo Irish Bank in providing funding for Arnotts’ northern quarter project, a proposed redevelopment of the shopping district around Henry Street in Dublin which ran aground in the financial crisis.
Ulster Bank’s owner, Edinburgh-based Royal Bank of Scotland, is due to announce between 3,000 and 4,000 job cuts in its investment banking division today.
The Scottish bank needed a £45.5 billion (€54 billion) cash injection from the British exchequer to bail it out in 2009. Close to £20 billion has been wiped off that investment by this week.
Meanwhile, workers at former building society EBS are planning a second one-day strike on Thursday, January 26th, over its refusal last month to pay them a one-month bonus that they normally received before Christmas.
Their trade union, Unite, announced that EBS staff agreed the action at a general meeting yesterday. They held their first one-day strike on December 11th last.
The Department of Finance told the EBS, now in State control, as it is part of AIB, that it could not make the payment to staff as it was a bonus. However, management received the payment as in their case it is classed as part of their normal salary.