2,000 jobs set to go in blow for economy

Ulster Bank is to cut employee numbers by up to 1,800 as it unveiled a plan to close dozens of branches.

The bank also announced yesterday that it was ready to step up legal action against mortgage arrears customers who refused to engage with the institution.

In a further blow for the economy, one of HP’s call centres is to close next March with the loss of 280 jobs.

Ulster Bank said it would close up to 40 branches with up to 850 further job losses.

The bank’s chief executive, Jim Brown, announced a raft of swingeing cuts that includes the closure of up to 39 branches and the reduction in staff numbers from 5,800 to as low as 4,000 by 2016 in an effort to return the bank to profitability.

There are 214 branches north and south, which could drop to 175 branches by the end of 2014. An Ulster Bank spokesperson said the branches that would be closed have not been identified yet. It closed 22 branches earlier this year.

The company had already announced 950 of the 1,800 possible redundancies, and it expected those signalled yesterday to come through natural attrition, added the spokesperson.

The news prompted a furious backlash from the head of the Irish Bank Officials Association, Larry Broderick. “I sometimes wonder if the senior management in Ulster Bank are deliberately trying to sabotage the bank’s future by their cavalier approach to their customers and staff.

“IBOA will not co-operate with any further change in Ulster Bank’s branch network unless there is full engagement with this union, based on comprehensive negotiations and agreement with appropriate protections for our members as well as clarification as to the bank’s future plans in both the short and medium term.”

Mr Brown said the strategy was to split Ulster Bank into a “really good bank” and asset management unit that would take over some of its worst-performing assets. Its parent, RBS, which is 82% owned by the British government, has had to pump in £14.5bn (€17bn) to cover losses incurred in the Irish property market.

Ulster Bank chief risk officer, Stephen Bell, also said that it was ready to step up legal action against mortgage arrears customers who refused to engage with the bank. A total of 84% of its troubled mortgages were issued between 2004 and 2008, he added.

There has been a considerable amount of speculation about the future of Ulster Bank over the past few weeks. In a speech in early June, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, proposed splitting RBS into a good bank and bad bank.

He included Ulster Bank and the UK commercial property portfolio as some of the assets that could be put into the bad bank.

Meanwhile, US multinational HP said it would close one of its call centres in Dublin with the loss of 220 full-time workers and 60 contract workers by the end of March next year, following its failure to retain a key contract. A company spokesperson said no other jobs at HP’s Irish operations would be affected. The call centre operated Italian and Portuguese support services for BarclayCard.