BANKING giant HSBC today announced 1,200 jobs are to go at its UK business.The bank - Europe's largest financial organisation - currently employs 58,000 people in Britain and said many of the job losses would come from “back-room” staff.

BANKING giant HSBC today announced 1,200 jobs are to go at its UK business.

The bank - Europe's largest financial organisation - currently employs 58,000 people in Britain and said many of the job losses would come from “back-room” staff.

A processing centre in Leamington Spa is set to axe 280 staff and a further 150 are to go in London and south Wales.

Unions claimed that the actual number of jobs going from the bank would be higher because other staff would not be replaced when they left the business.

Around 10 per cent of the staff at the bank's life insurance and pensions business could lose their jobs after the bank reported a loss of �1.5 billion last year.