Shinsei Bank Ltd. plans to cut "hundreds" of jobs at the consumer lending unit it bought from General Electric Co. last year as the industry contracts, the head of the division said Thursday.
Shinsei Financial Co., the renamed former GE subsidiary, will trim staff even after meeting a profit target of about ¥30 billion for the fiscal year that ended March 31, CEO Shota Umeda said in an interview. The unit aims to cut costs by ¥5 billion annually over the next three years, he said.
The deepening recession is fueling an increase in bad loans for consumer lenders, which have been declining since a 2006 crackdown by authorities forced them to repay borrowers billions of yen in overcharged interest.