KEB Hana Bank, South Korea's leading lender by assets, said Sunday it has eliminated 690 jobs through a voluntary retirement program as part of efforts to downsize.

The number of job cuts, made in late December, amounts to 4.3 percent of its workforce of 16,100 as of the end of November last year, according to KEB Hana.

The lender said the early retirement program, carried out for the first time in about four years, focused mainly on employees aged 40 and older.

KEB Hana's job reduction was the third-largest conducted by local lenders last year. KB Kookmin Bank and Standard Chartered Korea slashed 1,121 and 961 jobs, respectively.

In September, KEB Hana began operations as the merged entity between Hana Bank and Korea Exchange Bank (KEB). Hana Financial Group Inc., the bank's parent company, acquired KEB from U.S. buyout fund Lone Star in 2012. (Yonhap)