Standard Chartered plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs over the next four years as it increasingly uses artificial intelligence.

The London-headquartered lender is one of the first major global banks to lay out plans to cut thousands of jobs, citing AI as a driver to make its operations slimmer as it seeks to increase its profitability and tackle competition.StanChart said on Tuesday (19) it would cut 15% of its back-office roles by 2030, which would result in about 7,800 redundancies out of its more than 52,000 staff in such roles.

The lender has a total global workforce of nearly 82,000 and its chief executive, Bill Winters, said the reduction will be driven by automation and adoption of artificial intelligence as some staff reskill.The most affected roles will be with the bank’s back-office centres, including those in Chennai, Bengaluru, Kuala Lumpur and Warsaw, according to Winters.“It’s not cost-cutting. It’s replacing in some cases lower-value human capital with the financial capital and the investment capital we’re putting in,” he said.

The cuts, alongside higher shareholder return targets announced in a strategy update, come as StanChart is at the tail-end of a decade-long effort to transform itself from a potential takeover target to a steadily profitable lender.

StanChart’s move to streamline operations and rein in costs comes as more global firms slash jobs by deploying AI to improve efficiency. Global lenders are also scrambling to integrate new AI models and fend off rising cyber threats.