Nordic bank Nordea has announced it is looking to cut up to 1,500 jobs over the next year on the basis of efficiency savings from AI.

The cuts, totalling up to 5 per cent of the company’s workforce, are expected to cost €190 million in the first quarter of this year, Nordea said, and alongside a push into AI, deliver at least €150 million in annual savings from 2028.

This reduction is part of its 2030 strategy, which intends to serve customers more efficiently by “transforming local customer processes into Nordic wide value chains and reducing, simplifying and modernising technology systems and infrastructure”.

Some of Nordea’s affected employees will be offered other roles internally, the bank said. Changes will be subject to relevant union negotiations and consultations, and the bank will support employees in developing new skills that strengthen their competitiveness.

Nordea’s share price has risen by 1.23 per cent in the wake of the announcement, but remains down 3.2 per cent over the past month.

FStech has reached out to Nordea for comment on the basis of the savings calculations.

This announcement is the latest in a series from banks that hope to benefit from efficiency savings from AI and are using these projections to cut their workforces, including Japan’s Mizuho Group. Morgan Stanley analysts estimated in January that up to 200,000 European banking jobs could be lost to AI and branch closures over the next four years.

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