Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has retrenched around 200 staff in some underperforming divisions and others that are not expected to perform in the next year or two.
"Where there have been retrenchments there have been redeployments to other parts of our business," CBA chief executive Ralph Norris told journalists yesterday.
"The world is a fast-changing environment - it's a scary place out there," he said.
The cuts spanned back office roles, some areas of the corporate and institutional banking business and wealth management.
Staff numbers were also impacted from previous acquisitions, such as wealth management and broking company IWL and Bank ANK.
The bank had 45,013 employees at the end of December.
When asked if recent claims against CBA by the founders of Storm Financial had any foundation, Norris said: "I believe that the situation that they've got themselves into is their responsibility."
CBA said cash net profit after tax (NPAT) for its wealth management division slid 56 per cent to $175 million in the half year ended December 2008.
The unit was hurt by unrealised negative mark-to-market movements of $189 million from CommInsure's annuities portfolio.
Cash NPAT overall for Australia's second-biggest bank by value declined 16 per cent to $2.013 billion for the period, due to a significant increase in impairment expenses.
CBA's dividend was unchanged at $1.13. Shares in the bank rose 32c to $29.92 yesterday.
