Vikram Pandit, the former chief executive of Citigroup, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Wednesday that advancements in artificial intelligence and robotics could make 30 percent of banking jobs obsolete within the next five years.
Pandit, who is now the CEO of The Orogen Group and will be speaking about the future of the banking industry at NexChange’s Fintech O2O event on Sept. 27., said in the interview that he expects to see more consolidation in banking and increased decentralization that will result in fewer large financial institutions. Instead, Pandit indicates that the industry will begin moving toward “specialist providers.”
“Everything that happens with artificial intelligence, robotics and natural language — all of that is going to make processes easier,” said Pandit, who was Citigroup’s chief executive officer from 2007 to 2012. “It’s going to change the back office.”
Wall Street’s biggest firms are using technologies including machine learning and cloud computing to automate their operations, forcing many employees to adapt or find new positions. Bank of America Corp.’s Chief Operating Officer Tom Montag said in June the firm will keep cutting costsby finding more ways technology can replace people.
Bloomberg notes that Pandit’s estimation for how AI and robotics will impact the banking industry is in step with that of his former employer’s, but Pandit sees the upheaval happening at a much quicker rate. Citigroup estimated in a March 2016 repor that automation in retail banking will eliminate 30 percent of jobs between 2015 and 2025, including 700,000 in the U.S. and 1 million in Europe.
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