Report : Nomura Plans Dozens Of Job Cuts In Europe And U.S.

(RTTNews) - Nomura Holdings Inc. (NMR) plans to cut dozens of jobs across its trading and investment-banking businesses in Europe and the U.S. as the brokerage struggles to make a profit overseas, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the matter.

Executives at the Tokyo-based firm may shed more than 100 traders and bankers across its overseas units. The bulk of the reductions are likely to come at Nomura's troubled European business, which has lost billions of dollars in the past decade, the report said.

Separately, Nomura Holdings and the University of Tsukuba today announced that they have agreed to launch a joint project that leverages blockchain technology from April 2019.

The project will be headed by Kazumasa Omote, Associate Professor at the University of Tsukuba, in collaboration with Nomura Asset Management Co., Ltd. (NAM) and N-Village Co., Ltd., wholly owned subsidiaries of Nomura.

As part of the project, the partners plan to incorporate blockchain themes into "enPiT"1, a joint educational initiative between industry and universities in Japan aimed at developing exceptional IT talent. The partners will also look to construct a secure system to provide various business services on the blockchain, and test blockchain business models. In addition, they will do joint research and verification tests to examine how the technology can be used in the asset management industry.

NAM will use the results of the project to help advance its efforts to digitalize the asset management industry, as well as further tailor investment products to the needs of its clients.