HSBC, the bank chaired by Glaswegian Douglas Flint, has unveiled plans for a further 14,000 job losses in a new cost-cutting drive aimed at saving $2 billion (£1.3bn) to $3bn a year.

The cuts are part of a package of measures intended to help the institution, which has its headquarters in London, cut its cost efficiency ratio, focus investment on emerging markets, and return cash to investors through share buy-backs.

The announcement comes after HSBC provided an above-target $4bn of cuts from its previous phase of rationalisation that resulted in it closing or disposing of 52 businesses.

Chief executive Stuart Gulliver said: "HSBC is now simpler, easier to manage and ready and able to take of advantage of opportunities to grow."

Since Mr Gulliver took over in 2011, HSBC's workforce has fallen from 300,000 to 260,000 and it indicated last week it is on course to drop to 254,000 due to cuts already planned.

Yesterday, it signalled employee numbers will shrink further, to between 240,000 and 250,000, due to initiatives intended to deliver up to $3bn of annual savings by 2016.Mr Gulliver said the planned job cuts "are thinly spread around the world".

Chief operating officer Sean O'Sullivan said that it expects to make many of the reductions through attrition, noting that staff turnover at its call centres in the UK amounts to some 20% to 25% a year.

Sluggish growth outside Asia, particularly in Europe, means its target to get costs below 52% of revenue has been abandoned.

The new goal is to keep the ratio near 55%, the level it was at in 2010.

HSBC had a cost efficiency ratio of 63% last year, which improved to 53% in the first quarter of 2013.

Mr Gulliver said the run-off of its US loan book and some investment bank assets would make it difficult for HSBC to meet its goal of a return on equity of more than 12% this year, but he stuck with that target.

This was treated with scepticism in some quarters, with Investec analyst Ian Gordon describing the target as "an aspiration, not a reality".

HSBC said it would progressively grow its dividend and aimed to introduce a share buy-back scheme next year.

UK regulators have been pressing many banks to increase their capital cushions and restrain pay-outs to investors.

But Iain Mackay, the Aberdeen University graduate who is HSBC's finance director, insisted the company had had conversations with "very senior people" at the City regulator about its plans.

"To be absolutely clear, we have not front-run this," he said.

Such a move would make it one of the first European banks to buy back shares since the financial crisis.

HSBC said the buy-back will offset the impact of investors, including many in Hong Kong, taking shares instead of cash dividends.

But many in the City hope the scheme will go beyond this.

In the face of weak demand in Europe, HSBC plans to increase revenue by focusing on high-return markets in Asia, where it generated around two-thirds of its profit in the first quarter.

The bank has scaled back its annual revenue growth targets for its wealth management division by $1bn to an additional $3bn, blaming tougher regulations for restricting its ability to sell its products in countries such as the UK.

HSBC's shares closed yesterday up 8p or 1.1% at 754.4p.