Resona Holdings Inc. plans to trim headcount by about 3,100 staff, or almost 10 percent of its workforce, over three years as the Japanese bank seeks to cut costs to offset dwindling lending profits.
The Tokyo-based bank, which had 31,800 employees as of March, plans to make the reduction through natural attrition, according to a three-year business plan unveiled Tuesday. The company will hire fewer college graduates and has no plans to offer early retirement, a spokesman said.
Even before the coronavirus, Japanese banks had been shrinking their workforces to cope with declining interest rates and make better use of digital technology. Digitalization will make it possible to operate with fewer staff, Resona said.
The bank plans to reduce expenses to about 60 percent of revenue in the year ending in March 2023, from 63.3 percent in the year just finished. Net income will fall 21 percent to ¥120 billion in the current fiscal year, it said.