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Article: London-based bank Standard Chartered Hong Kong lays off 200 despite profit.
- Article from:
- Kyodo News International (Tokyo, Japan)
- Article date:
- November 9, 2004
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Kyodo News International. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Nov. 9--HONG KONG -- Standard Chartered Hong Kong has laid off about 200 employees in its consumer banking division, about 5 percent of its total workforce in Hong Kong, the London-based bank said Tuesday.
Bank officials told a press conference that although the economy in Hong Kong is recovering, the outlook for demand from people borrowing from bank remains weak.
"Consumers are very prudent when making decisions to borrow from the bank as they have learned a hard lesson of negative equity in the last few years," said Tan Kong-khoon, head of consumer banking.
"As part of a plan to drive up productivity and efficiency, we have to let go around ...