EUROPE’S LARGEST BANK, HSBC, is set to cut 30,000 jobs worldwide by the end of 2013.

It’s not yet clear if the 700 people employed by the bank in Ireland will be affected by the cuts.

Shares in HSBC have risen today after it posted pre-tax profits of almost €8 billion for the first half of the year. Reuters is calling the profit rise a surprise, and said that it’s higher than the figure predicted by its analysts. The profits are up from €7.6 billion ($11 billion) a year ago.

Five thousand jobs have already been cut in the US, Latin America, Britain, France and the Middle East, with 25,000 more to go.

RTÉ reports that the 700 HSBC employees in Ireland work in a range of areas, including corporate banking, fund administration and insurance services.

HSBC currently employs around 296,000 people worldwide. It has declined to give details of where the job cuts will be but has said that it it still hiring in emerging economies such as Brazil and Mexico.

The bank is to sell almost half of its retail bank branches in the US as part of its new strategy to focus on fast-growing emerging markets. The bank is still dealing with the legacy of bad loans in the US from the 2003 acquisition of consumer lender Household International Inc.

The acquisition made HSBC the biggest subprime lender in the United States at the time, which resulted in billions of losses to HSBC leading up to the financial crisis of 2008.

- Additional reporting by AP