'We won't be cutting jobs,' says BNP Paribas boss

BNP Paribas, which employs 6600 people in the City, will not follow many of its rival banks in cutting thousands of jobs, chief executive Baudouin Prot said, adding that costs were under control despite a challenging trading backdrop.

Prot said the bank had not bulked up excessively after the financial crisis, helping it avoid the thousands of redundancies announced at rivals such as Credit Suisse and UBS.

HSBC shocked the City yesterday when it announced that it is planning to axe 30,000 jobs.

"We didn't go for the go-go hires peers did in the last few quarters. If we didn't go for the go we didn't have to go for the stop," Prot said.

BNP Paribas missed second-quarter profit forecasts today, hurt by a hit from Greece even after a resilient showing in retail and investment banking.

Net income was lower than expected at 2.13 billion (£1.85 billion) but flat compared to the same period in 2010 and short of the 2.23 billion predicted by analysts.