How Citibank predicts 30% of banking jobs use robots as smartphones and Mobile Money spread

Looks like the Robot Revolution is coming to take away banking jobs!

So says a Citigroup report, which predicts job losses of up to 30% between 2015 and 2025 due to robots as reported in the article “30% of bank jobs are under threat”, published April 4, 2016 by Matt Egan, CNN Money.

This comes as no surprise as Bank of England had already sounded the trumpet in November 2015, declaring that robots would take away 80 million American and 15 million British jobs or 50% of the workforce of these respective countries in the next 10 to 20 years as reported in the article “Smarter robots put 50% of jobs at risk”, published November 13, 2015 by Ivana Kottasova, CNN Money.

So what's causing this trend?

Citibank says robots taking banking jobs - Why Smartphones and Mobile money means banks have to adjust.

Smartphones and the advent of mobile money is making it easier than ever for customers to do banking on the go.

Just as Chatbots are revolutionizing the selling of products on Social Media platforms such as Facebook as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “How FB Messenger Ads means Chess playing Chatbots with Fast Food Coupons”, so too are robots revolutionizing the Banking and Investment world.

This revolution towards Robotics is part of the Financial Technology or Fintech revolution and is receiving massive amounts of funding according to Citi and CB Insights:

1.      US$1.8 billion in 2010

2.      US$19 billion in 2015

70% is customer experience focused, as nobody likes to go to a bank anymore. Banks are responding by embracing the change, as Citibank predicts that by 2023, 17% of banking revenue would be lost to FinTech startups.

Some banks have been installing ATM (Automated Teller Machines) with some even going cashless and even headless, requiring only the smartphone screen to do banking as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “How US Banks upgrading to Cashless ATM as Jamaica dances with Mobile Money”. 

After all, paying banking staff accounts for roughly 65% of total cost base of some of the largest banks. With US branch tellers declining by some 15% since it hit its highest level back in 2007, the job of a bank teller as well as back end processing and investment operations will also fall to the rise of robots.