European banks plan to cut 200,000 jobs as AI takes hold
European banks plan to cut 200,000 jobs as AI takes hold
18 Comments
“I didn’t embezzle this money! It was clearly the AI!”
How to crime in 2026 and beyond.
People keep saying “AI doesn’t do anything useful” but forget that ChatGPT didn’t even exist up until about 3 years ago. That’s hardly any time ago and the models are continuing to improve, but what has been lacking is tooling around these models. Now that we’re 3 years into it we’re starting to see more polished products/services that can leverage the models, and that’s where the real employment displacement will take place, not just by the models themselves. If all of this has happened in 3 years, just imagine what the next 5 years will look like as tools improve and more automation arrives.
It already began in 2025. Some departments (especially back office) let go about 30% of staff, and, contrary to the usual European practice, they started reductions with senior positions and the highest salaries, these were the first to go.
‘AI will create more jobs’.. yea sure
All those people without a job will either be switching banks or won’t need a bank…
So when my loan is denied by AI I can sue the bank to demonstrate the AI had no bias? Will the AI take the stand and try to convince a jury? Will banks demonstrate that the AI inhaled all the required trainings that a human would have taken? How can they demonstrate that an AI made a decision for a specific reason if LLM can’t reason deductively?
Or will they have one human who will rubber stamp everything? A thousand loans a day maybe? Then they’ll go to court and testify they read 40 million pages of loan applications every week and “yes judge I have no Bias”.
Don’t see how this works in the real world.
Also, while we’re at it. I’m not paying a fee on my debit card for a bank with no employees.
Prompt injector-type security breaches are going to be insane; I hope for everyone’s sake they have someone competent in cybersecurity.
Wow LLMs running banks
In all fairness, lots of banking, finance and insurance jobs are totally non-productive overhead that somehow still extracts value out of the (productive) economy.
I’m not saying that we would be better off in a world where no bank tellers or loan officers exist, jut one with fewer middle managers and insurance actuaries, etc.
Hopefully European banks have better systems in place than UK ones, as UK banks will be fucked once they switch over to AI. Can’t go two weeks without hearing about a UK bank having technical issues and AI will make it worse. Given that different UK banks own multiple brands, when one bank suffers a problem then two or three more banks are affected.
AI could be targeted to improve things like fraud and scam prevention but that makes too much sense and banks will want that shit everywhere.
European banks don’t have 200k employees to terminate.
I can’t imagine throughout all of EU, that there is more than a few hundred thousand employees.
Especially if we assume this is ignoring US banks that operate or have subsidies in EU.
Not doubting the impact of AI, but also in an effort to not get swept up in the headlines:
The article states:
>”200,000 European banking jobs **could** vanish **by 2030** as lenders lean into AI and shutter physical branches
It quotes this article as the source this information:
[https://www.ft.com/content/71e12f85-1edb-4156-8cb5-3fe8aef36d93](https://www.ft.com/content/71e12f85-1edb-4156-8cb5-3fe8aef36d93)
Which I found an archive link to:
[https://archive.is/di8HC](https://archive.is/di8HC)
Which had this nugget:
>The forecast from Morgan Stanley that the industry could cut 10 per cent of jobs by 2030 comes as banks are rushing to secure the savings promised by AI while also moving more of their operations online.
>Cuts are most likely to come from within banks’ “central services” divisions, which include back- and middle-office roles, as well as risk management and compliance positions, according to the analysis of 35 lenders.
>Together, the banks employ roughly 2.12mn staff, meaning that a **10 per cent reduction** would result in about 212,000 job cuts.
>“Many banks have quoted efficiency gains coming from AI and further digitalisation to the tune of 30 per cent,” Morgan Stanley said.
>Europe’s lenders have come under intense pressure from investors to find new ways to cut costs and boost returns on equity **that persistently lag behind their US rivals.**
>Banks have already begun to cite AI as a catalyst for restructuring their operations.
* A 10% reduction over nearly 5 years in an industry already struggling isn’t that unheard of
* They are clearly wanting to demonstrate they are lowering cost, and AI sure seems like a convenient excuse (hence, the last sentence)
They even so much as say the quiet part out loud:
>Morgan Stanley’s analysts said **AI offered banks an opportunity to improve their cost-to-income ratios** — a critical measure of efficiency for lenders tracked by investors — **as previous rounds of cost-cutting have run out of steam.**
Anyway, they go onto say that the technology hasn’t even been implemented yet and the cost savings are purely theoretical, and:
>Conor Hillery, JPMorgan Chase’s co-chief executive of Europe, Middle East and Africa, said: “The one thing we have to be very careful about — in this rush and excitement about AI in our world of banking — is that people don’t lose an understanding of the basics and fundamentals.”
>[…]
>“Otherwise, we’re storing up a big problem for the future,” Hillery said.
TL;DR: its pure conjecture from start to finish. Of course it will have an impact, but we really don’t know how and there’s an inherent risk in even attempting to integrate it because there’s still no actual proof that it saves money. They say they’ve seen *”efficiency gains coming from AI and further digitalisation to the tune of 30 per cent”*, but the counterintuitive element is that efficiency gains don’t always equate to cost savings (many times they have little to no impact).
European banks are nuking 200k jobs (10% of workforce) by 2030. ABN Amro targets a 20% cut by 2028. Middle-office roles see 30% efficiency gains. Banks are finally fixing their broken unit economics. Adapt or exit.
it feels like shit knowing what’s happening, seeing what’s coming, and everyone is still gaslighting you with “nah, its fine, you’re just a doom-saying conspiracy theorist”
did the ATM replace tellers?
👋 hey, how’s the job market over there on the other side of the Atlantic? AI you say? How many jobs? Well, I wouldn’t be too worried. Elon Musk just tweeted that “ very high universal basic income is coming soon”. 🔜 Will let y’all know when our deposits hit so you guys can look forward to it. Cheers!
Translation: we’re cost cutting useless BS jobs and LLMs are taking the blame for it
~The beatings will continue until moral improves~
The layoffs will continue as their income improves