(Bloomberg) ? HSBC Holdings Plc ? which recently took over the Bank of Bermuda ? will cut 3,500 UK jobs after removing 4,000 positions last year, as finance companies shift clerical work to Asia where labour is cheaper.

The reduction of about 9 percent of HSBC?s 41,000-strong UK workforce will be partly offset by the addition of 1,000 new branch staff, leaving it with a net loss of 2,500 employees in Britain, said Richard Beck, a spokesman for the London-based company.

Most job cuts are head office administrative and support workers and some 950 positions will be moved to Asia, Beck said.

?HSBC is taking advantage of its global reach and shifting employees to Asia where costs are lower,? said Andrew Hobson, who helps manage the equivalent of ?645 million ($1.2 billion) including HSBC shares at Exeter Investment Group.

?This is a trend we?re seeing across the banking sector.?

Michael Geoghegan, who took over as chief executive of HSBC?s UK bank in January, is cutting costs at the unit, which produces about 25 percent total profit and accounts for 33 percent of spending.

HSBC is among companies including J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Aviva that are moving thousands of jobs to India, China and Malaysia where employees are paid a tenth of the wages in developed economies.

The HSBC ? Europe?s largest bank by market value ? transfers come eight months after the lender said it will move 4,000 jobs from the UK to Asian countries.

It also cut 1,400 jobs last July. Aviva, the UK?s biggest insurer by premiums, will have moved about 3,700 jobs to India by the end of the year.

British banks and insurers may move more than 100,000 jobs from the UK to less-expensive economies over seven years, according to a report by London-based Troika last year, which advises companies on moving processes.

It costs about ten pounds to process an insurance policy in India or South Africa and more than ?30 in the UK, the report said.

Finance companies worldwide may move as many as 2 million jobs and costs of as much as $350 billion to economies with lower wages over five years, HSBC chairman John Bond said in speech at a Goldman Sachs conference last month, citing Deloitte Research.

?HSBC and others have been criticised in some quarters for exporting jobs from developed countries,? Bond said.

?We believe that we are preserving jobs in the West by doing what is necessary to ensure HSBC?s long-term success.?

The bank will help retrain employees who will lose their jobs, and may try to find other positions for them within the company, said Richard Beck, an HSBC spokesman.

UNIFI, the country?s biggest bank-workers? union, opposes the cuts and has threatened to strike.

?UNIFI is calling on HSBC to stop and review, not accelerate, the transfer of UK jobs,? the union said in an e- mailed statement.

?This is terrible news for staff and customers.?

The bank employed 219,286 people worldwide at the end of 2003 according to Bloomberg data.

Shares in the bank fell 4 pence, or 0.5 percent to close at 810 pence in London. They have declined 7.8 percent this year.