AI to enhance existing roles in finance — Citi

A Citi Global Perspectives and Solutions report disclosed that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will enhance existing roles and not cancel them.

“AI will most likely bring productivity gains to the finance sector and the broader economy by automating and augmenting current tasks and roles,” Citigroup’s thought leadership product said.

The report revealed that technology and coding roles in finance would be at the forefront of productivity gains, as generative AI will likely lead to 30-50 percent productivity gains in more basic coding tasks.

Jobs have already experienced significant changes in recent decades. However, according to a World Economic Forum analysis, nearly a quarter of all jobs globally will still record changes in the next five years as they are likely more susceptible to AI-driven change.

It predicted that AI would bring three significant changes to the finance division: job cuts, job creation, and increased efficiency.

In its report, Citi GPS highlighted that banks already rely on tech-driven solutions. It noted that the headcount in tech roles has increased in the past few decades as focus has been placed on digitisation and digital transformation.

It argued, “Despite the 2010s tech revolution, financial jobs as a percentage of total employment remained stable at around 5.5 percent.

“Similarly, the introduction of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) from the late 1960s onwards did not lead to a drop in the number of human tellers employed by banks in the US. In fact, from the 1970s onwards until the mid-2000s, the number of human tellers employed in physical bank branches exploded as the U.S. economy and financial sector both grew rapidly in size.”

The thought leadership product stated that AI will introduce new roles, providing ample time for people to move on to more important tasks.

“New roles will emerge in AI governance, model training, and output monitoring. Also, existing human staff, in coding or other roles, will have more time to focus on other value-added tasks,” it said.

For companies, the report added that firms that empower their staff to execute technological change and transformation will have their market shares and/or profit margins impacted mainly at the expense of slower competitors.

“The main beneficiaries will likely be firms with a comprehensive AI strategy and a clear future target operating model that considers how to attract the right talent, solve for legacy technology, and deal with unstructured data sets across the organisation before putting AI to work,” it added.

Recently, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase warned that the financial industry must invest in AI infrastructure to remain competitive.

In a recent post, FSDH Merchant Bank highlighted how AI will help Nigerian banks improve their efficiency. According to FSDH, AI will enhance banking through AI detection.

“The adoption of AI-powered solutions has strengthened fraud detection and risk management capabilities in Nigerian financial institutions, safeguarding customer interests and preserving financial stability,” it said.