In Q2 2018, IBOS member Nordea managed to cut costs in a strategy behind one of the industry’s boldest plans to replace humans with automation, reported in Bloomberg.
Whilst many in the finance industry have struggled to digest Nordea’s message, the latest set of bank results in Sweden suggests that executives in one of the planet’s most technologically advanced corners are drawing inspiration from Nordea.
Nordea, which is the only global systemically significant bank in the Nordic region, saw total costs drop 115 in Q2 2018 from a year earlier as staff numbers fell 8% to approximately 29,300.
Nordea’s lower costs helped the bank deliver a 31% annual increase in operating profit in Q2 2018, the best performance of Sweden’s four main banks. Nearly a year later waiting for Nordea’s digital plan to pay off, investors were rewarded when the bank’s earnings report triggered the best share-price performance since early February 2018.
Other leading Swedish banks are now trying to automate more, however the only Swedish bank to have seen its headcount go down in any significant way is Nordea.
Read the full article in Bloomberg here.
