IE
KBC Ireland staff able to remain in their happy homes
19 November 2009
The 450 staff of KBC Bank Ireland can breathe a sigh of relief, at least for the time being, now that it's escaped the restructuring plan imposed on its Belgian parent by the European Commission yesterday.
Ireland has not been considered a core market for KBC for some time now, so employees here were on tenterhooks as the bank agreed to sell certain assets in return for receiving state aid. Instead, it's been placed in the "keep and review" category.
The Irish operation managed to post a profit of €68m for the first three quarters of this year, in spite of setting aside €101m to cover bad loans. But, it's not been an easy year for staff at the bank.
In January it confirmed it was making 15 redundancies across all operations, and according to reports, redeployed the vast majority of its mortgage and small business lending sales team across to credit control.
At the end of 2008, the bank employed 522 staff in Ireland, but this figure is believed to be closer to 450 now. It also employs a good number of people on a temporary basis, and has largely refused to commit to permanent hires throughout 2009 according to recruiters.
One banking headhunter tells us: "The majority of hires have been on a 6-12 month fixed term contract, which obviously makes them more easily expendable and, as they don't receive any benefits, keeps costs down."
Nonetheless, KBC Ireland is still recruiting for some full-time positions, including compliance roles for both retail and wholesale banking. It's also hiring for an internal auditor and client services administrator on a 12 and six month contract respectively.
Despite the uncertainty at the bank, recruiters tell us that KBC Ireland employees have not been exploring new job opportunities in significant numbers.
In fact, as one recruiter tells us, they're difficult to prise away: "I recently attempted headhunting somebody at KBC for a senior corporate banking role, but he was very happy there. They're big enough to have a good corporate culture, but small enough to really make an impact there."
