HSBC to shut down activities in Brazil, to focus on China, India

British bank HSBC announced Tuesday that it will shut down almost all of its activities in Brazil, and will instead concentrate more on its presence in Asia, mainly in China and India.

HSBC said it would leave a "modest participation" in Brazil to continue attending to big corporate clients.

Currently, HSBC has 853 agencies in 531 of Brazil's municipalities, employing over 21,000 people. It also has 452 banking service centers, 699 electronic banking service centers and 1,809 self-service centers with 4,728 automatic bank machines.

Between 2011 and 2014, the bank cut 40,000 jobs in the country to reduce costs and to concentrate on activities that were considered strategic.

Tuesday's announcement came as part of a restructuring plan to save up to 5 billion U.S. dollars by 2017. The plan is expected to put around 50,000 people out of work all over the world.

The bank plans to accelerate investments in Asia by developing business in both the Pearl River Delta in China's Guangdong Province, and in the ASEAN region.