UBS to cut 10,000 jobs. Singapore, India and Hong Kong are affected

Last week, Financial Times leaked the plans of Swiss bank UBS to cut 10,000 jobs and yesterday it is official: UBS unveiled plans on Tuesday to fire 10,000 staff and wind down its fixed income business. The bank plans to return to its private banking roots and will focus on wealth management and a smaller investment bank. How will these job cuts affect Singapore and Hong Kong staff?

UBS is mainly cutting staff in Switzerland, Europe and the US and on Tuesday dozens of traders were stopped from entering the UBS's London offices. [1] Good news for Australia staff, they are not affected from this round of job cuts. But Singapore and Hong Kong will be affected:

Dozens of traders at UBS's offices in London learned in the worst way that they had lost their jobs when they turned up to work to find out that their security passes no longer worked at the turnstile. 

The traders - many of them from the Swiss banking giant's fixed income department - soon discovered they had been put on two weeks special leave as part of UBS's plans to cut 10,000 staff in a retreat from fixed income.[3]

According to Singapore's state media, only less than 10 of 2,000 UBS employees in Singapore will be affected. According to a recruiter in Singapore, Singapore has already suffered redundancies in FICC sales, but some FICC (Fixed Income Clearing Corporation ) traders will be reassigned into wealth management:

"A Hong Kong headhunter with knowledge of the bank, who asked not to be named, says a few redundancies were announced in Hong Kong from 8am on Tuesday morning. Credit and rates roles were trimmed across a range of seniorities, although the number of staff affected is likely to be low proportionally. USB has emphasised that Switzerland, London and Stamford, Connecticut will be the worst-hit locations. 

FICC is bearing the brunt of the global lay-offs, including in Asia, as the bank pulls back from its less-profitable trading operations. “The key factor driving this is Basel III’s capital requirements, which reduce the profitability/ROI of the division,” says another recruiter." 

One of the worst affected country in Asia is India, where UBS is expected to make cuts in the“high double digits”, according to media reports.[2]

As usual for banks, UBS fired the staff on Tuesday with a rude and quick note: Some staff turned out in the office in the morning have discovered that their entrance card does not work any more. They have then been escorted to Human Resources where they have collected a box full of their belongings and given 2 weeks of paid leave:

Chafing at their treatment, several tweeters revived "U've Been Sacked," an invented acronym for UBS which circulated in 1998 after the bank fired hundreds of staff following the merger of the two big Swiss banks which formed today's UBS.[1]

These cuts fire 15% of UBS staff force which is currently standing at 63,745 and will be and was once 83,500 at its peak in 2007.

[1] - UBS to cut 10,000 jobs in fixed income retreat
[2] - UBS cuts: Asia affected, Australia escapes
[3] - Locked-out UBS traders head to the pub