Fewer than 100 jobs at risk in BNZ restructure

BNZ bank on Queen Street.

Bank of New Zealand says fewer than 100 staff could be affected by its restructure, mostly from its head offices.

Some of those staff learnt their fate today, when the bank told them if proposed changes will go ahead.

In response to speculation that hundreds of jobs could be at risk, BNZ's director of people and communication Annie Brown said this evening: "The numbers in the media have been exaggerated so although I can't confirm exact detail, what I can say is that the proposed changes may impact fewer than 100 staff, largely from our head offices."

"Changes of this nature are never entered into lightly, and for BNZ this is about ensuring we have the right resources in the right place to deliver our business strategy. For any people who are impacted, we always work with them to see if there are other roles they can be deployed into."

A BNZ spokeswoman said earlier today said that some staff would find out if proposed changes will go ahead.

"Feedback will have been considered and some people will start to find out if a proposal will go ahead or if it will be a different proposal and then we have another two weeks of redeployment which is where if we have any impacted people we look to see if there are vacancies in other areas of the business that they can fill," the spokeswoman said.

BNZ currently has 4500 permanent full-time staff and 760 permanent part-time staff.

It reported a 16 per cent drop in profit for the six months to March 2016.

That decline in half-year profit - from $536 million to $451m - was mainly due to lower gains on financial instruments, affected by a falling Kiwi dollar.

The local unit of National Australia Bank is due to report its full-year results on October 27, along with its parent.