What 20,000 job cuts? HSBC sets out its stall as a people-centric employer with AI skills training top of the agenda

Back in March, it was leaked that banking giant HSBC was planning to cut as many as 20,000 jobs globally over the next three to five years as it accelerates the use of AI, around ten percent of its global workforce. It would be one of the largest headcount reductions in the banking sector, so perhaps unsurprisingly, with discussion still underway, HSBC chose to remain silent at the time.

But that was never going to be a sustainable long-term position to take.  As soon as layoffs got underway, ‘no comment’ wasn’t going to be a viable currency. So it was interesting to hear Group CEO Georges Elhedery address AI and its impact head on, seeking to position the tech as part of a wider transformational strategy:

This is really an upgrading of our operating model. This is HSBC re-engineering itself, re-wiring itself to be simpler, to be agile and to be able to deliver fast. [There are] two big work streams under this category.

The first one is a demised work stream. We’re killing non-strategic or legacy applications called out here, and we’re tracking this. But we’re also killing legacy products and all the processes and procedures linked to legacy products. We’re killing spreadsheets, EUCs (end user computing) that are not needed. We’re killing URLs, we’re killing cost centers, and we’re streamlining by taking down all of those.

The second work stream under this is we are simplifying policies process procedure, automating and embedding controls in an automated way. We have more than 50 of those process procedures that are in the process of being simplified.

OK, but getting down to the nitty gritty that everyone really wants to hear about – those 20,000 job cuts? Elhedery has a stab at talking about AI in general first:

If I was here in 2020 talking about this, I will be telling you that we’re going to put dozens and dozens of Six Sigma process engineers, giving them a process, giving them weeks and weeks to be able to review it and re-design it, re-engineer it and then another weeks and weeks and weeks to develop a new one. Fortunately, I’m doing this in 2026, 2025 started, and we have generative AI.  And generative AI is going to be a material accelerator of these initiatives.

OK, but job cuts? How many? He goes on:

The vision is to empower our colleagues to use AI in order to create personalized experience for each customer or client to deliver it safely in real time and at scale, while we keep human judgment, human decision-making and human accountability at the core.

JOB CUTS?!?!? For heavens sake, tell us about the job cuts!!!! Finally:

We have 200,000 colleagues. We all know generative AI will destroy certain jobs and will create new jobs. But my initial mission is I need 200,000 colleagues with us on this journey. However, many will be left at the end of the journey isn’t the problem.

It is if you’re one of the 20,000 facing the chop!

People-focused?

But Elhedery sees it differently it seems:

The problem is how can we make sure that those twenty – 200,000 colleagues have been given all the capabilities, the training, the tools to make themselves future-ready, be more productive versions of themselves. Importantly, how can they be on the journey with us, not fighting us, not dis-enfranchised, not anxious, overwhelmed and resisting the change?

Was that a significant slip of the tongue, starting to say 20, rather than 200,000? Was he starting to say, for whatever reason (ahem), 20,000 perhaps? Well, we don’t know – and the CEO is more interested in talking about how much HSBC wants to skill up those who are on the payroll:

Everyone will be given training capabilities, productivity tools, specialized tools, coding assistance so that they can become a better, more productive, higher-performing version of themselves. It’s on them to use these tools and be future-ready. It’s on us to make sure that they’re all given these opportunities to come along the journey with us.

Benefits

Another goal from AI involves simplifying and scaling how the bank operates, he goes on. HSBC recently promoted David Rice, Chief Operating Officer for its Corporate and Institutional Banking business, to a new role as Chief AI Officer. He’s got a lot to do, according to Elhedery:

He already delivered, end-to-end, the KYC (Know Your Customer) onboarding process for Corporate Institutional Banking with material productivity saves and time save. And now we’ve given him oversight across the bank, all our value streams, businesses and functions, technology and operations to help us re-design, collectively re-design with the help of AI, with the help of external partners, all these processes,

It’s a moonshot. But imagine we’re onboarding in real time, credit card application approval in real time, wholesale revolving credit facility approval in real time, capital allocation in real time. That’s the moonshot. So we’re bringing time down materially, but the idea is if you’re fully-automated, your customer life cycle should come to nil.

And personalization of Customer Experience is also a priority, he adds:

This is where it’s not anymore about productivity or cost gains. It’s going to be about acquisition of more customers and more revenue. There’s a revenue element, there’s a new customer element in this third goal, which is the personalization of experience. We are putting these tools in the hand of all our frontline colleagues today. They will be using them, be it relationship managers, wealth advisers, contact center operators, salespeople, et cetera. But in the future, if these tools have proven their worth and we train them well and then we control them well, we can put them in the hand of our customers.

This is a grand ambition, he concedes:

Just to give you an idea, [with] KYC, we achieved 55% productivity, 50% reduction in client onboarding time. Of course, the moonshot is 100% reduction, but that’s a fantastic journey so far. Financial crime risk monitoring, we are 4x better at detecting financial crime. We’re twice faster in the investigation, and we have 70% fewer false positives. You can see the benefits. They’re already live. We’re using them. They’re already delivering the productivity gains that we see.

My take

So, those 20,000 job cuts….er….???

The talk of skilling-up and training is all very nice and positive – and does absolutely diddly-squat to dispel the 20,000 job cuts incoming narrative. It also rather seems to shift the onus onto the workforce to justify its existence – we’ll give you some training, but you better make sure you perform better as a result. Or as Elhedery puts it, ‘It’s on them to..be future-ready’. Gulp!

I mean, he didn’t start wittering on about “lower-value human capital” as his peer did over at Standard Chartered as that organization announced its program of 7,800 AI-driven job cuts, but if this was a pitch to emphasize that HSBC cares about being people-centric, I’d suggest that would be goal better achieved by not skipping around the ruddy great elephant in the room.

I guess they will have to talk about once the pink slips start flying, but it all gives a rather poor impression to my mind. Better to grasp the nettle and back up the business case now than give the impression – justified or not – that you’d much rather not talk about this or it’s something that you’re ashamed of. Look around, HSBC – you’re scarcely the first – or the last – in 2026 to be having this conversation!