Nordea Bank will cut its workforce by at least 6,000 employees to bring down running costs and boost competitiveness.

Peter Hupfeld, chief executive officer, Nordea Finance, said the announcement was the ‘starting point’ of a Nordea-wide efficiency program that will run over the next three to four years.

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“It is too early to share what the impact will be for Nordea Finance,” said Hupfeld. “For the past two years, we have already had our focus on implementing new systems and automating processes to better meet customer needs, now and in the future.”

The bank, which currently employs around 31,500 staff mainly in Finland, Sweden and Denmark, said that about 2,000 of those job cuts will be consultants.

The move will result in the bank taking a ‘transformation’ cost of €100m-€150m in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Presenting its third-quarter report, Nordea Bank chief executive officer Casper von Koskull said: “We are almost two years into the transformation of Nordea. Since investments are starting to deliver, it is time to enter the next phase, in which we see that we can structurally bring down costs and increase efficiency. This transformation would not have been possible without our strong balance sheet and robust business model.

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“In the coming years we will achieve economies of scale by taking our centres of excellence to the next level and create efficient and automated operations. To achieve this we also need to continue a cultural transformation into a purpose-led and values-guided organization,” von Koskull added.

The banking group, which decided to move its headquarters from Stockholm to Helsinki last month, posted operating profits of €1.09bn for the third quarter of 2017, down 5% compared to a year ago.