Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), Spain's second-biggest bank, said it has eliminated 24 banking jobs from its New York office and has offered to transfer 40 others to Houston.
The bankers let go included members of its mergers and acquisitions team, said four other people, who asked not to be named.
BBVA joins banks around the world that are reducing their workforce.
Nine major global banks - Deutsche Bank, Barclays, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, UBS, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley - announced more than 30,000 job cuts in the first nine months of last year, Bloomberg data shows.
The Spanish bank's credit rating was downgraded three times last year by Standard & Poor's, from A-plus to BBB-minus, one step above junk, causing the bank to lose business, two of the sources said.