May 21 (Reuters) – Hong Kong and Singapore regulators have sought clarity from Standard Chartered after CEO Bill Winters said the global lender plans to replace “lower-value human capital” with technology, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.
Winters’ comment came up in discussions with the Monetary Authority of Singapore on Wednesday, while the Hong Kong Monetary Authority asked StanChart to explain the remarks, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
The regulators pressed the lender on the impact of job cuts in their markets, with the Hong Kong authority asking whether StanChart was using AI as a pretext to cut staff, the report added.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) “regularly engages with major banks in Singapore on key aspects of their business,” MAS’ spokesperson said in a response to Reuters’ query on Thursday.
“The HKMA regularly engages with authorized institutions on a wide range of matters. We do not comment on day-to-day supervisory dialogues or speculative media reports,” an HKMA spokesperson told Reuters.
The scrutiny comes after the bank said on Tuesday it is looking to cut more than 7,000 jobs over the next four years, with Winters’ “lower-value human capital” remark prompting the chief to assuage staff concerns.
The days after saw remarks from some of the world’s largest lenders on AI’s impact on the financial industry, with HSBC CEO Georges Elhedery saying the disruptive technology would destroy and create certain jobs, urging staff to embrace change rather than resist it.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon told Bloomberg News in an interview that the bank will hire more AI specialists and fewer traditional bankers.
(Reporting by Nichiket Sunil in Bengaluru and Yantoultra Ngui in Singapore and Selena Li in Hong Kong; Editing by Vijay Kishore and Chizu Nomiyama)
