Italy’s largest bank, UniCredit, has announced large cuts to its workforce on the back of a decrease in profits during the last financial year. 

The bank’s profits decreased from €722 million to €507 million this year,as it intends to shed 14% of its workforce, or 18,000 people by 2018.

UniCredit has significant operations in many Central and Eastern European markets, including Ukraine, Russia and Poland.

It is understand its Ukrainian arm, which employs 6,000 people, will be offloaded considering the huge difficulties in the market there. Russian operations which are also currently being hit hard, are likely to be sold off also.

In Poland, UniCredit own a majority stake in Bank Pekeo. Whilst profits recently came out ahead of expectations for Pekao, CNBC has suggested the sale of the stake is under consideration.

The impact on the Hungarian business will not lead to any job losses, according to Hungarian media. UniCredit also has business in; Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Slovakia. There are no reports of any threats to jobs here.

The bulk of the job losses are said to come in the Italian, Austrian and German markets.