Who profits from banking’s AI moment?

Where AI is introduced without consultation, it creates uncertainty and mistrust and makes it harder to use the tools effectively (Source: Unsplash/Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu)

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By UNI Europa,
Brussels
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Generative artificial intelligence has arrived in Europe’s banks faster than almost anyone predicted, and it is already changing how the sector’s 2.6 million workers do their jobs.

Chatbots handle customer queries, algorithms draft compliance reports and models sift transactions for fraud.

The promise is as real as the risks – and a growing body of evidence suggests the benefits and the burdens are landing very unevenly.

A recent report commissioned by the European social partners in the sector, UNI Europa and the European Banking Federation, sets out the scale of the shift.

In banking, generative AI could add between €180bn and €306bn in value to banks worldwide – the equivalent of nine to 15 per cent of the industry’s current operating profits.

The largest gains are expected in corporate and retail banking, powered by automation of fraud and anti-money-laundering checks, credit-risk analysis, regulatory reporting and customer support.

Nordic frontrunners

Surveys show that adoption is already widespread. Nordic finance is among the world’s front runners, with 85 percent of companies in Norway, 84 percent in Sweden and 61 per cent in Denmark reporting adoption.

In Finland, more than 80 percent of financial-services employees use AI-based tools in their daily work; in Germany, only roughly half do.

In Europe’s south, banks are making big moves into AI, too.

Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy's largest bank, is rolling out more than 150 AI applications. Its analytics tools have cut the time needed to complete European Union-wide stress-test reports by more than 80 percent, while its customer-service chatbot resolves around 85 percent of text-based requests.

But the same programme involves cutting 9,000 jobs – about 10 per cent of staff – by 2027, alongside 3,500 new digitally skilled hires.

Importantly, that transition was negotiated with trade unions and includes early retirement and redeployment, allowing the bank to save an estimated €500m a year from 2028 without simply leaving workers behind.

The difference between a fair transition and a brutal one is rarely the technology – it is the dialogue around it.

That matters because worker anxiety is running high.

Let's talk

A survey by Ireland’s Financial Services Union found that 80 percent of banking staff were concerned about job losses, 62 per cent about bias in decision-making and 60 per cent about AI being used in hiring, firing or surveillance.

The Financial Times reports that up to 200,000 European banking jobs could be at risk by 2030, with reductions falling hardest on face-to-face and record-keeping roles, and on older and less digitally literate employees – precisely the groups least able to reskill quickly.

But the general picture varies considerably across the sector. As Lucia Lyng Velasco of the Danish union Finansforbundet points out, some banks are investing broadly in technology, skills and adoption, while others limit access to selected groups or mainly rely on standard tools from existing suppliers.

Most current use cases remain “low-to medium-risk” but this is likely to change as banks put the governance and risk models needed for more critical applications in place.

According to Velasco, workers report that AI reduces administrative work and frees up time for other tasks. However, it remains unclear whether companies will turn these gains into better services and lower workloads or primarily use them to cut labour costs.

Where AI is introduced without consultation, it creates uncertainty and mistrust and makes it harder to use the tools effectively.

That’s why unions insist on AI governance and social dialogue.

Backed by research

Research by FAOS at the University of Copenhagen highlights that Nordic managers are legally obliged to involve employees when introducing new technology, giving the region a rare template for negotiating responsible AI.

Elsewhere, unions and employers are experimenting with AI ethics charters, joint committees and binding commitments to human oversight and retraining.

Yet coverage remains thin: only around 20 percent of unions surveyed currently have any AI-related collective agreement in place.

Regulation adds another layer of complexity.

Under the EU AI Act, certain creditworthiness and human-resources applications are classified as high-risk, triggering requirements concerning risk management, data governance, documentation, human oversight and monitoring.

This is where the involvement of unions in social dialogue is key to making the AI Act work.

Employee representatives hold practical knowledge of how AI systems function on the ground – identifying errors, unintended consequences and ethical dilemmas that formal risk management may miss.

Michael Budolfsen, president of UNI Europa Finance, argues therefore that the banking sector’s response must be shaped by workers, not simply delivered to them: “Generative AI can make banking jobs better – less routine, more human – but only if workers have a real say in how it is introduced.”

Maureen Hick, director of UNI Europa Finance, adds: “The evidence is clear that where unions are at the table, transitions are fairer and trust is higher. Employers should treat social dialogue not as a box to tick after the fact, but as the foundation of responsible AI.”

Generative AI in banking is neither the jobs apocalypse some fear nor the frictionless windfall its boosters promise.

It is a powerful, expensive and imperfect tool whose social outcomes are still being decided – in works councils, collective agreements and negotiating rooms across Europe.

The banks that thrive will be those that invest as seriously in their people as they do in the technology itself.

This stakeholder article is paid for by a third party. All opinions in this article reflect the views of the author and not of EUobserver.

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Where AI is introduced without consultation, it creates uncertainty and mistrust and makes it harder to use the tools effectively (Source: Unsplash/Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu)

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UNI Europa is the voice of seven million services workers coming together from 242 national trade unions in 50 countries, representing sectors that constitute the backbone of economic and social life in Europe.

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