JUST months after axing almost 230 Southampton staff because of “tough and challenging times”, banking giant HSBC has revealed massive bonuses for top bankers as profits rocket 56 per cent - before a raft of one-off charges.

Three senior bankers at the firm are in line for £9m payments each and the bank’s five biggest earners will pocket a combined £35m in bonuses alone, according to its annual report.

It will leave a bitter taste in the mouths of 228 call centre staff in HSBC’S 14-storey Nelson’s Gate offices after they learned late last year they were to be redundant. The closure of the Southampton call centre saved just £2.73m a year.

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HSBC defended the payouts saying these were justified by their financial performance.

Boss Michael Geoghegan confirmed that he will hand up to £4m of his bonus to charity.

The massive payouts come as HSBC announced its underlying profits reached £8.8 billion last year, up from £5.7 billion in 2008.

News of the cuts – part of 1,700 across the UK, left staff angry and in tears. The call centre is due to shut in June.

One staff member, who did not want to be named, said: “It is an absolute shambles.

They have shown it is all about the money at the end of the day. This shouldn’t have happened given how successful our centre was compared with other sites.

“It’s a joke. They are cutting jobs, but they are still paying bonuses.

How can they do that?

“Everyone was told the centre will be closing in June. Straight away it went very quiet. No one had suspected at all.

“To be honest, almost everyone was in tears. There were pregnant women there and other people just back from maternity. Others had just bought houses and are now going to have difficulty paying the mortgage.

HSBC chairman Stephen Green, who has also waived his bonus, pledged an end to the days of guaranteed bonuses under an overhaul of the bank’s pay policies.

“We have witnessed unacceptable distortions – from rewards linked to unsustainable or illusory day one revenues, which encouraged risk-taking; to multi-year guaranteed bonuses with no performance criteria,” he said.

“Remuneration must be firmly tied to sustainable performance and must not reward failure.”

Councillor Royston Smith, Cabinet member for economic development, said: “You understand that banks have to pay the best money for the best people, but it doesn’t sit well to have people making that sort of bonus and profits when people are losing their jobs. And this at a time when the country can ill afford people to be out of work.

“The caveat has to be that HSBC and Barclays haven’t been bailed out with taxpayers’ cash but, even so, it doesn’t seem right.”