Fears As MBNA Axes 400 Jobs

MBNA has confirmed this week that they will be cutting 400 jobs at their Chester branch as its parent company Bank of America looks to withdraw its credit card services from Europe.

MBNA has said that it hopes that the redundancies will mostly be voluntary and that they have been brought about following a review of the business.

There is currently a 3,500 strong workforce at the company’s European Credit Card headquarters on Chester Business Park including a large number of employees from Wrexham and the surrounding areas.

When MBNA announced plans to sell its credit card business back in August, Wrexham AM, Lesley Griffiths wrote to the President of MBNA’s Europe Card Service, seeking assurances over the future of jobs in Chester.

In her letter she noted that many people in Wrexham either worked at the Chester site or were related to or dependent upon those that do.

The news comes as another blow to the local jobs market which has taken several hits in the past few months most recently with the closure of Total Fitness in Wrexham.

The Bank of America’s Europe Card Executive, Ian O’Doherty, said: “The difficult economic circumstances in which we are currently operating and Bank of America’s decision to exit the Europe Credit Card business has prompted, over recent months, a fundamental review of our business with the purpose of streamlining our operations.

“The announced programme of reductions is one of the actions identified through this review, with the objective of making our operations more efficient and preparing the business for Bank of America’s exit.”