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By Lionel Laurent
PARIS, Jan 18 (Reuters) - French bank BNP Paribas plans to spend 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) over three years to pare down its businesses in response to lackluster growth in Europe, according to a union source.
Analysts and investors expect France's largest bank to lay out its new strategy in the coming months after a rocky year spent selling assets and cutting jobs.
Banks across Europe are shrinking to boost defences against a weakening economy and comply with tougher global regulations.
Germany's Deutsche Bank and Switzerland's UBS have recently announced job cuts while Britain's Barclays is preparing a new strategic plan.
BNP and domestic rivals Societe Generale and Credit Agricole have so far focused their restructuring efforts on investment-bank activities hardest hit by the financial crisis, but are now expected to turn to activities like retail banking exposed to weak European growth.
BNP's management outlined the overhaul to staff representatives on Jan. 16 - promising to cut layers of management and simplify decision-making - but stopped short of any details on jobs or how much money would be saved, a source from the SNB union told Reuters.
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