HSBC is reportedly planning to cut around 70 percent of its UK financial adviser roles as the bank increases its use of artificial intelligence and restructures its wealth business.
The proposed reductions would also affect around half of management and specialist roles in the division, according to a report in the Financial Times on Wednesday. Employees have entered a consultation process, with those whose jobs are affected expected to leave at the end of October.
HSBC has not commented on how many employees could lose their jobs. The reported changes — described by one person as “deep, wide and brutal” — form part of a wider overhaul under HSBC chief executive Georges Elhedery, who has been simplifying the bank’s organisational structure and seeking to reduce costs while increasing investment in technology.
HSBC has been expanding the use of AI across its operations, including within wealth management. The bank said in its interim results this year that AI was becoming increasingly important to the way it serves customers and operates internally. It said in its interim results released last August that employees were being given AI tools intended to “amplify their expertise, improve decisions and reduce complexity”.
Investing in tech
The reported job reductions come as the bank seeks to automate more of the work carried out in its UK wealth operation. According to the Financial Times, the restructuring is intended to create a more digitally focused service and reduce reliance on traditional financial advisers.
The extent to which individual job losses would result directly from AI has not been disclosed, however, and HSBC has not publicly set out detailed figures linking automation with the proposed redundancies.
The bank has continued to invest in technology for its wealth business. In August, it appointed Nick Elias as head of wealth platforms, giving him responsibility for developing its wealth technology and data infrastructure and embedding AI across the operation.
AI expected to change jobs
Elhedery has previously acknowledged that greater adoption of generative AI will eliminate some roles while creating others. Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum in May, he said: “AI will destroy certain jobs; there is no doubt about it. But AI will also create a lot of jobs.”
He argued that the challenge for employers was to prepare their workforces for technological change rather than attempt to prevent it.
“What we need to do is embrace the change and make sure we equip our workforce with the training, the tools and the capabilities to be future ready,” he said.
The comments came as HSBC expanded access to generative AI tools among employees. The bank has been exploring their use for tasks including document analysis, customer service and software development. The latest restructuring would represent a significant change for HSBC’s UK wealth operation, which the bank has previously sought to expand.
HSBC announced plans in 2023 to recruit more than 100 wealth managers as it pursued a target of increasing UK wealth assets to £100 billion by 2030. The reported proposals would substantially reduce the number of traditional adviser positions within the business as its operating model becomes more digitally focused.
Consultation with employees
The proposed reductions are subject to consultation with affected employees. Large-scale changes involving redundancies require employers to follow consultation requirements, with additional collective consultation obligations applying where 20 or more redundancies are proposed at one establishment within a 90-day period.
The number and distribution of roles potentially affected at HSBC have not been confirmed, making it unclear which statutory collective consultation requirements would apply. The plans come amid wider questions about how financial services employers will manage workforce changes as AI takes on tasks previously performed by employees.
Banks have been among the largest corporate adopters of generative AI, but the technology’s effect on employment is increasingly moving beyond predictions about future jobs as businesses redesign teams and reconsider which roles they require.
William Furney is a Managing Editor at Black and White Trading Ltd based in Kingston upon Hull, UK. His writing focuses on contemporary employment issues including pension schemes, employee health, financial struggles affecting workers and broader workplace trends.
- William Furney
- William Furney
- William Furney
- William Furney
