Banking: The Human Crisis, a survey of finance workers in 26 countries, analysed the effects of job losses and working conditions on bank workers since 2011.
Carried out by UNI Finance, the global union for the finance sector, the survey found more than 80% of banking unions in Europe reported deteriorating health as a major problem for their members.
The report is published two days after Hector Sants of Barclays became the latest senior UK banker to be forced to take time off because of stress-related exhaustion.
In late 2011, Lloyds Banking Group CEO Antonio Horta Osorio took time off for similar reasons, and in the same year Andy Hornby quit Alliance Boots less than a year after taking the post due to the stress of returning to frontline banking too soon after the collapse of HBOS.
The most severe case of banking sector stress occured in July when 21-year-old intern Moritz Erhardt died after collapsing in the shower of his east London flat after working three consecutive all-nighters.
Doing more for less
In most stress-related cases, workers report unfeasible sales targets, lower salaries, and having to complete the same workload with fewer members of staff. Anxiety over job cuts was also high, partly due to a trend of replacing older workers with younger, lower paid staff who are often on temporary contracts.
Marcio Monzane, head of UNI Finance, said: "This is a crisis that has affected us all in so many ways. While we are rightly pointing the finger at bank owners for their role in the crisis, there are millions of honest, hardworking finance employees whose working lives have been ruined by the unstoppable wave of changes affecting their industry.
"Hundreds of thousands of jobs have, and continue to be, lost. The pressure on staff to deliver with tighter human resources is immense, and it is being reflected in the deteriorating health and lifestyle of bank workers worldwide."
Personal toll
Half of the unions surveyed said members had complained their personal life is under "considerable strain". The IBOA union in Ireland reported staff were facing "unrealistic targets at all levels without consideration to the financial climate".
UNI Finance claimed job losses are accelerating in seven European countries including France, Netherlands and Greece, as well as in Asia, the Americas and Africa.
It said losses are slowing down in nine other European countries such as Ireland, Spain and the UK, but from a very high level.
The union wants a fairer approach to restructuring, limiting payments to shareholders and banks doing the "utmost" to preserve jobs.
Collective agreements between global unions and multinational banks, the union said, are a good way to ensure workers are treated and paid fairly.
