The number of people employed by banks will tumble over the next two decades as technological advancements such as mobile services make large parts of workforces redundant, according to a senior executive at Australian giant NAB.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Lisa Gray, head of personal banking at NAB, told a lunch in Melbourne: "Today, most of the banks have tens of thousands of employees. Into the future, potentially through technology, there will be handfuls of thousands of people but really they're adding very significant and different value for customers as well."
Gray says staff numbers will fall "not in the next few years but over the next couple of decades as there's more use of technology both at that personal mobile digital level, also, though, as organisations such as ourselves continue to invest and streamline the way day-to-day transactions are done."
Mobiles are already driving change, with more than a third of Internet banking logins now from handsets, says Gray. Meanwhile, social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook are being used for "authentic dialogue" with customers, replacing more people-hungry channels such as branches and call centres.
Technology 'will reduce banking jobs' - SMH