Banks plan to move 3,000 jobs out of City Three global investment banks plan to move 3,000 City of London jobs to other UK cities and towns over the next few years, bringing respite to regional financial centres as they struggle against heavy job losses in banking and insurance. The moves by Bank of America, JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank will bring hope that the much talked-of "nearshoring" - a movement of jobs either out of expensive London or from overseas back to Britain - may finally start to gather pace. If so, it could not come too soon for other cities. Eight of the UK's 10 largest financial centres have lost thousands of financial and professional services jobs over the past three years, according to data compiled for the Financial Times. Glasgow has lost 14 per cent of its jobs in these sectors, Leeds has lost 11 per cent, Bristol 10 per cent and Edinburgh 9 per cent. Only Manchester and Cardiff have maintained their employment levels. The figures were calculated by TheCityUK, the finance sector industry body, from official statistics. They show that while the big centres have shrunk, smaller areas have grown. These include Tatton - incorporating Knutsford and Alderley Edge in Cheshire - Milton Keynes, Exeter and Coventry. London has lost only 1.4 per cent of its jobs since 2008 - a surprisingly low figure in view of the City's travails since the financial crisis began. However, these figures include lawyers, accountants and management consultants as well as bankers and traders. Overall, the UK lost 106,000, or 4.9 per cent, of its financial and professional services jobs between 2008 and 2011. That is deeper than the 3 per cent fall in employment across the economy over that period. Regional centres are hoping for an increase in nearshoring to offset these losses. So far, it has been slow to accelerate, but the squeeze on financial companies" profits is forcing them to look hard at costs. Moving jobs to the regions can save 40 per cent on the wage bill. Bank of America expects to move up to 2,000 back- and middle-office staff to Chester over the next decade, according to people close to the plans. The US bank is transferring a few posts in operations, human resources and finance to the northwest city, where it already employs 3,000. JPMorgan, which employs 14,000 in the UK, is expected to move about 1,000 roles from London's Canary Wharf to Bournemouth over the next three years, with a similar number of lower-grade positions moved to Asia. It already employs 4,000 in the south coast town. Deutsche Bank could be among the first to move client-facing "front office" roles to a city outside London. It plans to bring sales traders to Birmingham, its main UK nearshoring hub, where it employs 1,300 wealth management, back- and middle-office staff. Deutsche will hire about 25 fixed-income sales traders in Birmingham for institutional clients, adding to a few corporate client-facing staff it transferred last year. It is also considering setting up an equity sales team there. The sales traders will mainly deal with medium-sized clients, allowing Deutsche's London team to concentrate on larger accounts. Bankers say that with fixed income trading moving on to electronic platforms, and client communication increasingly done over the phone or via messaging systems, a sales worker's location has become less relevant. "There is a track record of companies arriving in London and then nearshoring into other parts of the UK," said Chris Cummings, chief executive of TheCityUK. These nearshore centres are globally competitive - they are now taking jobs from Mexico and India in their own right. He acknowledged, however, that the UK faced a tough fight, particularly against Asian centres. Out of 147 location decisions taken over the past six years by companies considering whether to invest in the UK or elsewhere, more than half went against Britain. TheCityUK reckons nearly a fifth of jobs lost since 2007 went overseas. Mr Cummings is pressing the coalition for measures to improve Britain's competitive position, including certainty on tax, regulation that does not stifle growth, better immigration policies and a decision on airport expansion. Recent examples of nearshoring include Royal Bank of Scotland, which has moved almost 300 jobs from the City to Manchester. It plans to add another 100 there over the next 12 to 18 months. The Bank of New York Mellon established a global transaction settlement centre in Manchester in 2005, which now employs more than 1,000 in back-office roles. The bank describes Manchester as one of its "three global growth centres" along with Pune, in India, and Pittsburgh in the US. Owen Kelly, chief executive of Scottish Financial Enterprise, the industry body, said Scotland was winning jobs in areas such as asset servicing, with BlackRock and State Street expanding in Edinburgh. Barclays has created hundreds of jobs at a shared services hub in Glasgow. Reporting by Brian Groom, Patrick Jenkins, Daniel Schäfer, Andy Bounds, John Murray Brown and Chris Tighe