Yes Bank fires 500 staff, undertaking reconstruction to cut operating expenses, says report

Yes, Bank has sacked at least 500 staff across verticals to undertake restructuring, The Economic Times reported, citing sources.

The private sector lender has given fired employees three months salary as severance pay, one source added.

Livemint could not independently verify the report.

“Yes Bank launched an internal restructuring exercise at the advice of a MNC consultant. So far, around 500 have been asked to go and we can see more sackings in the coming weeks,” one source told ET.

Sources added that the bank is looking to cut costs and shift towards digital banking instead of manual help, it added.

Cost-cutting Exercise

Responding to queries, a spokesperson for Yes Bank told the paper it is looking to be an agile organisation, which is "leaner, faster, customer-centric", adding that optimising the workforce is a "periodic" exercise.

"In our endeavour to be an agile, future-ready organisation which is and operationally efficient, we periodically undertake a thorough review of the way we operate and optimise our workforce. We are committed to delivering the best of our banking services to our customers and deliver the full potential of the bank to our stakeholders,” the spokesperson told the paper.

The report noted that employee expenses grew 12 per cent from FY23 to FY24, costing ₹3,363 crore and ₹3,774 crore, respectively. As of FY24, Yes Bank had 28,000 staff. One source added that restructuring would help bring down operating expenses.

The move has gained eyeballs as it is the first banking sector player to initiate layoffs in many years, while all other private players are hiring.

Yes Bank Q4 Results

In April 2024, Yes Bank reported a 123 per cent year-on-year (YoY) increase in net profit for Q4FY24, rising to ₹452 crore from ₹202.4 crore in the same quarter last year, significantly surpassing analysts' expectations. Sequentially, profits rose by 95.2 per cent from the previous quarter.

Net Interest Margins (NIM) held steady at 2.4 per cent for Q4FY24, consistent with the previous quarter. The bank experienced robust growth in non-interest income (NII), with a 56.3 per cent increase YoY and a 31.3 per cent rise quarter-over-quarter in Q4FY24, culminating in a 38.8 per cent annual increase for FY24.