Speaking at the Handelsblatt business convention in Frankfurt on Wednesday morning, Cryan told the conference that the era of auditors and bankers acting like “abacuses” is proceeding to an end.
“In our banks, we have employees working like robots doing mechanical things, next day we’re going to ought robots behaving like people,” he said, according to a statement from the Financial Times.
“We have to find new means of hiring people and maybe employees need to find new means of spending their time… The honest answer is we won’t need as many people.”
Cryan did not provide any precise indication of how many staff may ultimately be replaced by technological progress, but said it would be a “big number.” Deutsche Bank currently operates around 100,000 staff globally.
“We need to acknowledge that what we had is accurate but it’s not significantly for the future,” he added. “We need more innovative spirit.”
Technological progress in banking and the wider jobs demand to mean that many think that a large amount of more straightforward jobs, such as data entry, will soon be superseded by automation.
A 2016 report from the World Economic Forum showed that computerization will lead to a net loss of over 5 million jobs in 15 major refined and emerging economies by 2020.
Certain business roles are already being impacted by the rise of so-called “robo-advisors” which are prepared to give financial advice to consumers without relying on an actual person.
HSBC is one important bank to roll out robot-advice, starting a service in June that “will use data and algorithms to give tailored advice and will make special recommendations based on an individual’s different circumstances.”
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