Human Bankers Are Losing To Robots as Nordea Sets a New Standard (bloomberg.com)

Something interesting happened in Swedish finance last quarter. The only big bank that managed to cut costs also happens to be behind one of the industry's boldest plans to replace humans with automation. From a report: Nordea Bank AB, whose Chief Executive Officer Casper von Koskull says his industry might only have half its current human workforce a decade from now, is cutting 6,000 of those jobs. Von Koskull says the adjustment is the only way to stay competitive in the future, with automation and robots taking over from people in everything from asset management to answering calls from retail clients. While many in the finance industry have struggled to digest that message, the latest set of bank results in Sweden suggests that executives in one of the planet's most technologically advanced corners are drawing inspiration from Nordea. At SEB AB, CEO Johan Torgeby now says that "whatever can be automated will be automated."

Comments

whatever can be automated MUST be automated

[mi]

whatever can be automated will be automated

As it should be. No one becomes a bank-teller, because they like it. Like hundreds of other jobs, it needs to be done, pleasant or not... We are all better off as these jobs are replaced by machinery.

Re:money

[Kjella]

so the place that holds all the money can't make money... or is it another growth projection bullshit

Oh they're making money alright, but it's all in cost cutting. There's only so much you can do about interest rates and such because of market conditions, but cutting salary is a big deal. And honestly most people like online banking, so many that it's become a run on branch offices. Here in Norway 91% of the adult population (16-79) now use online banking, it's literally as common as having an email address which is also at 91%. I just checked at my bank, 300 employees to 380000 customers. That's well over 1000 customers/employee, when you consider all the non-customer facing work you need to do then probably many thousands per head. Unless you've got millions of dollars to throw around they literally don't have time to care about you. You get the online interface, the absolute minimum of customer support they can get away with but the profit is in all the people you have no contact with. Ever. And to be honest, the feeling is mutual - if there's a way to do it myself, I'd generally prefer that...

A glimpse from the past

[mi]

You're going to see variations on that headline over and over from here on out.

We've been seeing it since before most of today's newspapers first printed. How many coachmen lost their jobs to a steam locomotive? How many computers lost their jobs to, ahem, computers? How many milkmen had to look for another vocation with the invention of pasteurization process and of refrigerators?

And speaking of "headlines" — you do know, that putting together the printing matrices was a manual process too, don't you? The expression "freedom of the press" and "stop the presses" is still around, even though there neither the actual presses any more — and some publications stopped wasting paper completely?

Civilization evolves, lamenting the disappearances of some professions is stupid...

Re:A glimpse from the past

[Weaselmancer]

It's going to be different this time. Yeah I know, that's been said before too.

The growth is exponential. The last 100 years or so have been exactly as you describe. Milkmen become refrigerator salesmen. So what?

But there is a ceiling. Name a profession that goes beyond automation engineer. Milkman to salesman to this to that...eventually you run out of space. That is happening, right now. Before much longer there will be robots, the people who build and program and service them...and nothing else. There isn't anything past that.

I'm not lamenting it, I'm just wanting us to be prepared for it. Because nobody takes it seriously and I have no idea why nobody takes it seriously. Things are due for a big change and we are amazingly unprepared for it.

first burgers, now bankers

[BLToday]

"It's cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who's inefficient making $15 an hour bagging French fries," former McDonald's chief executive Edward Rensi said in an appearance on Fox Business Network in May 2016."

"Researchers at Sony’s computer science laboratory in Paris recently put out a set of pop songs composed by an AI system, which scans songs from a database to compose entirely new pieces in certain musical styles"

"It was generated by Heliograf, a bot that made its debut on the Post’s website last year and marked the most sophisticated use of artificial intelligence in journalism to date."

"The San Francisco firm EquBot has launched the first retail ETF to be managed using IBM’s Watson supercomputing artificial intelligence technology."

I, for one, welcome our new AI overlords.

Re:Answering Machine

[known_coward_69]

i've called my bank once in the last 5 years

Re:Banks are for cows.

[Tablizer]

You are all cowbots. Cowbots say MooBeep. Say MOOOOBEEP! MOOOBEEP! You NORDEA COWBOTS!!

ftfy

Re:US Banks have been doing this for years

[b0s0z0ku]

ATMs can take cash for deposit too, believe it or not. Only problem is with damaged bills.

Re:Nordea Bank AP: "Hold my beer"

[LordWabbit2]

ATM's are a form of "banking robots" and they have been hacked plenty times already. Not sure about where you are, but in my country if you go into the bank and draw money from your account instead of using the ATM the bank charges are WAY higher, I suppose to deter people from doing it.

I used to avoid credit/debit cards (mostly because I don't want to be tracked) but I have kind of given up on that, it's just way more convenient and safer to work with plastic. Too many people have been robbed shortly after drawing large amounts of cash (inside job, cashier tells a partner outside the bank) that it's just too damn dangerous to walk around with a lot of cash, even if it's hidden from sight. I still prefer cash for a lot of things, especially small purchases like lunch etc. but with the smart chips and NFC in bank cards and more retailers having the newer NFC card machines if I see that they have one I will just tap instead of using cash, even though I would normally have used cash. You just tap, and if it's a small transaction you don't even need to enter your PIN. I need to get one of those sleeves to protect it methinks. I haven't heard of anyone "skimming" with NFC scanners in my country yet, but it's just a matter of time before it starts happening.