HSBC to cut 1,700 UK jobs

LONDON (Reuters) - Europe's biggest bank HSBC Holdings is cutting over 1,700 jobs in Britain, adding to thousands of cuts across the industry in the last year as pressure builds to reduce costs.

HSBC said 1,726 jobs are being cut, mostly due to a restructuring of branch network management and a consolidation of its collections and cards operations. Most cuts will be in Southend and Southampton. The cuts came a day after Royal Bank of Scotland said it was axing 3,700 jobs in its retail business, and adds to 1,200 cuts in HSBC's UK bank operations in March and 500 in December.

Unite, the union, slammed the latest cuts and said it was a "fundamental mistake" that would not improve the bank's performance. Unite estimated HSBC has now cut 4,600 UK jobs.

HSBC employs about 40,000 people in the UK Retail Bank and had 325,000 staff globally at the end of last year.

(Reporting by Steve Slater and Clara Ferreira-Marques)