Wells Fargo: Automation Will Displace 200k Banking Jobs In the Next Decade

Automation will displace 200,000 jobs in the banking industry in the next 10 years, according to Wells Fargo.

If that sounds like a lot, it is. Banks are spending more on automation than any other industry, says Bloomberg.

• U.S. finance companies are investing $150 billion annually on human labor-reducing technologies, such as AI chatbots, financial planning algorithms, and robotic process automation.
• "The next decade should be the biggest decade for banks in technology in history. You're about to see the biggest capital for labor swap in history," Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo told Yahoo Finance. Jobs in corporate offices, call centers, and branches are the most vulnerable.

Big picture: When the ATM was introduced in 1967, some experts forecasted it would put all bank tellers out of jobs. That didn’t happen. Banks opened more branches with fewer tellers, which led to more people with the job. But 50+ years after the first ATM, today’s automation is “deeper, faster, broader, and more disruptive,” per the Aspen Institute. AI and robots are poised to wipe out more banking jobs than they create...or at least that’s what one bank thinks.