Banker bots: Amid increasing competition for top talent, banks could turn to AI

Banks could begin to turn to artificial intelligence (AI), after the competition for top talent has prompted a battle of who can name the highest salary figure for newcomers.

JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs have already dedicated teams to modernising their M&A advisory and capital markets businesses.

And with pay for junior analysts at rival Morgan Stanley creeping up to £100,000 at base salary amid a squeezed labour market, Reuters’ Breakingviews has predicted that banks could begin adopting banking-robots to stop the runaway junior pay from eating into senior bankers’ bonus pots and other expenses.

While the idea of ‘banker bots’ is likely to rattle industry veterans, the uptake of digital services amid the pandemic has suggested that the adoption of technology to help with day-to-day tasks is easier than first thought.

The forecast comes nearly a year after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Bank of England hosted the second Artificial Intelligence Public Private Forum, in February 2021, as regulators race to iron out the details and ethics of AI.

“The quality of the output of an AI will only be as reliable and accurate as the data input,” head of fintech propositions at law firm Pinsent Masons, Luke Scanlon said at the time.

Data quality, economics, governance, ethics and regulation are all at the forefront of forum discussion.

AI and digital innovation raise “fundamental questions about the trade-offs between privacy and convenience, as well as concerns about the vast opportunities for cybercrime involving personal data”, chief data, informational and intelligence officer at the CDO Exchange for Financial Services, Jessica Rusu explained.

But despite this, “machine learning and artificial intelligence will only become more important to our work in the coming months and years”, she added.

“We want to facilitate the broader debate on the risks and ethical questions associated with these tools, as well as exploiting their potential to improve our practices for the benefit of consumers.”