Standard Chartered bets on AI as it cuts ‘lower value human capital’
Standard Chartered has announced plans to slash almost 8,000 back-office roles, stoking fears about the wide scale threat artificial intelligence poses to the global job market.
The London-headquartered lender said it would reduce over 15 per cent of its support functions by 2030, equivalent to around 7,800 jobs, as boss Bill Winters pushed through a new strategy aimed at lifting profitability and increasing income per employee.
Winters insisted the move was not a conventional cost-cutting exercise: “It’s not cost cutting: it’s replacing, in some cases, lower-value human capital with the financial capital and investment capital we’re putting in.”
The cuts are expected to fall across corporate functions including human resources, with affected operations understood to include back-office centres in India, Malaysia and Poland.
Standard Chartered’s push to streamline operations and cut costs comes as global firms turn to AI-driven job cuts to boost efficiency.
“Of course we’re using AI along the way and AI will be a huge facilitator and enabler of that,” Winters added, referring to the continued automation of the bank’s core systems.
The job cuts look part of a gloomy trend hitting the banking sector. Research by Morgan Stanley last year estimated that AI would put more than 200,000 European banking jobs at risk by 2030, about 10 per cent of industry roles across the continent.
The news came as the Asia-focused bank unveiled new medium-term financial targets, including a return on tangible equity of more than 15 per cent in 2028, rising to around 18 per cent in 2030.
StanChart also set aside $190m (£142m) in precautionary provisions linked to the Middle East conflict in the first three months of the year.
JPMorgan analyst Kian Abouhossein felt the “broadly in line” targets could get a “muted” near-term share price reaction, given that expectations have built up – particularly following the strong first quarter print.