ANZ Bank has moved to assure banking union Finsec that no New Zealand jobs will be affected following reports overseas of job losses.
ANZ is expected to announce on Friday its intention to cut between 500 and 1000 jobs in Australia.
The Australian-owned bank says new management structure plans are beginning to crystalise and most of the jobs will be cut from within middle management.
Bank spokesperson Paul Edwards says he cannot confirm the exact number of jobs that will be cut, but denies reports that 10% of the workforce will go.
Finsec general-secretary Andrew Cassidy says ANZ had already announced that 650 New Zealand jobs will be outsourced, most to Bangalore in India.
However, Mr Cassidy says ANZ has assured him it has no plans for redundancies in New Zealand on top of that.
Meanwhile, up to 10,000 jobs could go in the next 12 to 18 months if the big banks restructure their workforces, Australia's Finance Sector Union says.
National secretary Leon Carter said speculation that ANZ Bank planned to cut staff in the lead-up to Christmas could trigger mass sackings at the other big banks.
Already there is speculation that Westpac will shed 5,000 jobs when it merges with St George.
"We think that 10,000 jobs could disappear out of the banking sector over the next 12 to 18 months," Mr Carter said in Melbourne on Friday.
He called on the federal government to pressure the banks to forgo sackings after it gave taxpayer-funded guarantees on all savings in Australian banks.
There is also speculation that Westpac will shed 5000 jobs when it merges with St George bank.
But a Westpac New Zealand spokesperson says the merger with St George will not affect workers in New Zealand because it operates under a different structure to its parent company.
