Amid the growing concerns about job cuts around the world, by some of the biggest companies, due to Artificial Intelligence (AI), Georges Elhedery, the CEO of HSBC, has appealed to the bank’s staff not to fight the technology.
Elhedery urged staff to make sure they were “not fighting us, not disenfranchised, not anxious, overwhelmed, and resisting the change,” pledging that AI could make them “more productive versions of themselves”.
‘AI will destroy certain jobs’
“We all know generative AI will destroy certain jobs and will create new jobs,” Elhedery said.
In March this year, it was reported that HSBC is weighing a medium-term reduction of up to 20,000 roles as part of a broad cost-cutting plan. The job cuts are tied to an AI-focused transformation of the bank’s operations and organisational structure.
The plan, which has not been made official yet by HSBC, is expected to focus on non-client-facing positions, particularly in the lender’s global service centres. According to a Bloomberg report, the cuts would be implemented over a three- to five-year period and may be achieved through a combination of redundancies, attrition, and not replacing departing employees.
HSBC employs more than 211,000 people globally.
Standard Chartered CEO sparks outrage
The HSBC CEO’s comments coincide with the remarks made by the head of one of its main competitors – .
Bill Winters, the CEO of Standard Chartered, found himself embroiled in a major controversy after claiming that AI would replace “lower-value human capital,” while speaking about the planned job cuts in the bank.
Standard Chartered said on Tuesday it would eliminate almost 8,000 jobs by replacing “lower-value human capital” with technology.
StanChart, which has 83,000 employees, said it would cut 15% of its corporate function roles by 2030, highlighting how staff in so-called back office roles are particularly vulnerable.
Other banks planning job cuts
Apart from Standard Chartered and HSBC, several other banks around the world are also embracing AI while trimming their workforce. In February 2025, the then CEO of DBS Group, Piyush Gupta, had said that Singapore’s largest bank announced it will cut 4,000 contract and temporary positions over the next three years as automation expands, while creating roughly 1,000 new AI-specific roles.
“In my 15 years of being a CEO, for the first time, I’m struggling to create jobs. So far, I’ve always had a line of sight to what jobs I can create. This time, I’m struggling to say how will I repurpose people to create jobs,” Gupta had said.
According to Reuters, Goldman Sachs told staff in October of potential job cuts and a hiring slowdown.
CEO Charlie Scharf said in December it has not reduced the number of people it employs as a result of AI, but was “getting a lot more done” because of the technology.
What banking jobs will be affected?
A Morgan Stanley analysts found that companies in banking, technology and professional services had shed one in 20 staff in the past year as a result of using AI.
Offshore workers, on whom financial services firms rely to run many of their IT services at locations including India or Poland, and young, new workers are bearing the brunt, Morgan Stanley’s report said.