LONDON — Standard Chartered announced plans to cut more than 7,000 back-office jobs over the next four years as it expands its use of artificial intelligence. The London-headquartered bank said it would eliminate 15% of its back-office roles by 2030, resulting in about 7,800 redundancies among more than 52,000 staff in such positions.

The reduction will be driven by automation and adoption of artificial intelligence as some staff reskill, Standard Chartered chief executive Bill Winters said. The most affected roles will be at the bank's back-office centres in Chennai, Bengaluru, Kuala Lumpur and Warsaw, he said.

"It's not cost-cutting. It's replacing in some cases lower-value human capital with the financial capital and the investment capital we're putting in," Winters said.

The bank, which focuses on the Asia-Pacific and Africa, has a total global workforce of nearly 82,000 employees. Standard Chartered is one of the first major global banks to announce plans to cut thousands of jobs citing AI as the driver behind the reductions.

The job cuts were disclosed alongside a strategy update in which the bank announced higher shareholder return targets. Standard Chartered said Winters will remain as chief executive for the next few years to oversee the latest strategy. "Of course we're using AI along the way and AI will be a huge facilitator and enabler of that," he said.

Research released by Morgan Stanley estimated that AI would put more than 200,000 European banking jobs at risk by 2030, representing about 10% of industry roles across the continent. In December 2024, Klarna said it had stopped hiring a year earlier because AI was able to start doing the work of hundreds of staff across the company.