By Selena Li

HONG KONG, May 15 (Reuters) - Hong Kong-based lender Hang Seng Bank 0011.HK said on Thursday that it was restructuring its business and streamlining duplicate roles in a move that would lead to job losses for about 1% of its "core staff".

Hang Seng Bank, which is 63%-owned by global banking group HSBC HSBA.L, "reviews and restructures its business from time to time" in response to "the ever-changing market condition and diversified client needs", it said in a statement.

The lender will use technology to improve operational efficiency and service quality, it added.

Hang Seng Bank did not respond immediately to a request for comment on how many of its employees were considered "core staff".

It employed around 8,300 people, mainly in Hong Kong and mainland China, as of the end of 2024.

The statement from Hang Seng Bank came a day after Hong Kong's Sing Tao Daily reported the lender, which has rarely made large-scale layoffs, was cutting 10% to 50% of staff in some teams.

The bank is opening up new roles, for which impacted staff can apply as part of the restructure, it said in the statement, without providing further details.

The Hong Kong and mainland China-focused lender has reported rising bad loans over the last few years due to its relatively high exposure to the property sector in those key markets.

The impaired loans reached 6.1% of its gross loans as of end-2024, up sharply from 2.8% at the end of 2023.

Reuters last year reported that due to worries about a potential rise in bad loans amid growing economic headwinds and the property sector crisis in China, HSBC in early 2024 started planning to tighten risk management at Hang Seng Bank.

Parent HSBC last year launched a global overhaul and began trimming its workforce to remove duplicated roles to bring down costs.

HSBC said on Wednesday it plans to cut 348 jobs in France through a voluntary redundancy scheme, amounting to about 10% of its workforce in the country.

The job losses are part of a cost-cutting drive led by CEO Georges Elhedery, who aims to reduce expenses by $1.8 billion by the end of 2026.

(Reporting by Selena Li; Editing by Jamie Freed)

((Selena.Li@thomsonreuters.com; +852 39525868;))