UniCredit outlines 6,000 job cuts and 450 branch closures in cost-cutting plan
UniCredit has kicked off plans to cut around 6,000 jobs and close 450 branches, part of a cost-cutting exercise announced last year.
Jean Pierre Mustier is leading a cost-cutting project at UniCredit set to be completed by 2023
In a union letter seen by Bloomberg News, the Italian bank says that it will be making redundancies through early retirements in a “socially responsible way”.
UniCredit CEO Jean Pierre Mustier said last year that the bank’s three-year plan would increase stakeholder value by €16 billion ($17.7 billion).
In a bid to reward shareholders through dividends and buy-backs, UniCredit aims to release half of its underlying net profit to shareholders in 2023 – forecast to be just over €8 billion ($8.9 billion), and 40% each year until then.
Since 2014 the bank has cut around 20,000 jobs, 14,000 of which has occurred during Mustier’s time at the top.
UniCredit aims to become a paperless retail bank by the end of 2020 in its home country, and do the same in Germany and Austria in 2021.
Read more: Deutsche Bank already using robots as it gears up to cut 18,000 jobs
In 2019 the bank’s cybersecurity team identified a potential data breach involving a file created in 2015 and containing a set of three million records relating to its Italian customers.
The records consisted of names, cities, telephone numbers and email addresses. The bank stresses that no other personal data or any bank details permitting access to customer accounts has been leaked.
