Standard Chartered plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs through increased use of AI

Standard Chartered plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs over the next four years as the company increasingly uses artificial intelligence.

The London-based lender is one of the first major global banks to unveil plans to cut thousands of jobs. It cites AI as a driving force for streamlining its operations to increase profitability and combat competition.

StanChart said Tuesday it would cut 15% of its back-office jobs by 2030, resulting in about 7,800 layoffs of its more than 52,000 employees in those roles.

The lender employs nearly 82,000 people worldwide and its chief executive Bill Winters said the decline would be driven by automation and the use of artificial intelligence, as well as the retraining of some employees.

Winters said jobs in the bank’s back-office centers, including in Chennai, Bengaluru, Kuala Lumpur and Warsaw, will be hardest hit.

“It’s not about cutting costs. It’s about replacing, in some cases, inferior human capital with financial…”