Standard Chartered's CEO is walking back his remarks about "lower-value human capital"—or, as they prefer to be referred to, employees. Bill Winters sent a memo to bank employees after his comment that the bank would swap "lower-value human capital" for artificial intelligence triggered internal unease and public criticism, including from former Singaporean President Halimah Yacob, who called the wording "disturbing," the Wall Street Journal reports.
- "Many of you will have seen media coverage following the investor event in Hong Kong, particularly the reporting around automation, AI, and workforce changes," Winters wrote. "I know this may be unsettling when reduced to simple headlines or a quote out of context."
Winters stressed that any roles that disappear will reflect "changes in the work, not the value of our people." The British multinational bank, which mainly operates in Asia, plans to cut more than 15% of its support staff by 2030—about 7,800 jobs—in areas like HR and risk and compliance, as it leans on AI for tasks such as screening for financial crime and tracking regulatory changes. Winters says the technology will boost profits at the bank, which employs roughly 81,000 people worldwide plus 17,000 contractors.
In a memo to staff before his talk to investors on Tuesday, Winters said the bank would try to retrain workers where possible and promised job losses would be handled with "respect and care." But outrage followed his remark to reporters that the move isn't cost-cutting, but "replacing in some cases lower-value human capital with the financial capital and the investment capital we're putting in." Frank Landymore at Futurism calls it "perhaps the most strained and misanthropic euphemism" for employees in history. The Financial Times' Alphaville blog, meanwhile, has started selling "lower-value human capital" merch.
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