Banks drastically reduce staff in the digital era

TPBank pursued a digitalization strategy early, so it quickly streamlined its staff - Photo: QUANG DINH

Leaders of some banks said that parts of the work that are manual and repetitive will be replaced as much as possible.

Cut thousands of employees

The three banks with the largest staff cuts in the first quarter of this year are LPBank , Sacombank and VIB. Of which, VIB reduced about 500 staff, Sacombank this number was 930 and LPBank in particular reduced 1,620 people.

In addition to the above banks, statistics on financial reports show that there are 7 other places that also recorded a downward trend in the number of employees after the first 3 months of this year.

These banks include ACB , TPBank, ABBank, Vietcombank, MSB, SeABank and Saigonbank. Most of these banks have undergone a streamlining process starting last year.

For example, ABBank has reduced nearly 170 employees in 2024. Or ACB - the bank chaired by Mr. Tran Hung Huy - also cut 377 people last year after recruiting heavily in 2023. Similarly, TPBank has also continued the streamlining process for 2 consecutive years.

Speaking to Tuoi Tre, Mr. Nguyen Hung - General Director of TPBank - said that the bank pursued a digitalization strategy early on. Through that, the bank optimized its operating processes with increasingly streamlined resources.

According to Mr. Hung, the reduction in staff over the past two years is not a short-term decision but is part of a long-term development roadmap.

Departments with manual, repetitive work, or those that can be highly automated, such as operations and counter transactions, have been and are being streamlined.

"The bank has deployed nearly 500 automated robots to replace simple tasks, which helps employees focus on tasks that require creativity and higher added value instead of doing repetitive tasks," said Mr. Hung.

Speaking to shareholders in April 2025, LPBank leaders said that the bank has been applying many solutions to optimize costs, including streamlining systems, streamlining processes, and applying technology to increase productivity.

Mr. Nguyen Duc Thuy, Chairman of LPBank's Board of Directors, said that with the streamlined revolution, LPBank has streamlined from 17 business units to 8 business units and officially deployed operations according to the new model at the end of 2024.

According to Mr. Vu Van Tien - Vice Chairman of ABBank's Board of Directors, in the digital age, the bank has been streamlining its apparatus strongly, with some departments being streamlined by 30 - 40% to cut costs and improve efficiency.

Increase recruitment of technology, data, AI, and cybersecurity personnel

In fact, staff reduction in any department is carefully calculated by banks to ensure that customer service quality is not reduced but rather improved in the context of fierce market competition.

In addition, while many traditional jobs are being replaced by AI, new jobs are also emerging, requiring banks to increase recruitment and make efforts to retrain to suit the characteristics of this industry.

Personnel changes in the banking industry in the first quarter of 2025 - Source: Financial statements in the first quarter of 2025 - Graphics: BINH KHÁNH

The leader of a top 10 bank in the system shared that he has invested thousands of billions of VND/year in digital transformation.

When implementing the digital transformation process, some new jobs have arisen. 70% of the digital workforce does not have banking expertise such as design, big data, security, etc. and will have to be retrained.

Mr. Nguyen Hung also said that the number of employees at the bank is decreasing, but that does not mean "stopping recruitment".

On the contrary, this bank still needs many high-quality personnel in areas such as technology, data, AI, cybersecurity and strategic positions to meet the development needs of digital banking.

In addition, jobs related to sales force and direct contact with customers still need to increase, corresponding to the growth scale.

"Streamlining and recruitment are not contradictory, but complement each other. It is not a simple cut but a restructuring to create an elite team, in line with the technology orientation set from the beginning," said Mr. Hung.

At Sacombank, after reducing more than 350 people last year, in the first quarter of this year, this bank continued to rank second in terms of personnel streamlining scale.

Not stopping there, Sacombank leaders said the trend of streamlining personnel is expected to continue this year and next year.

Accordingly, the bank will cut staff at traditional transaction offices and increase transactions in digital space. Sacombank continuously terminates transaction offices in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

On the one hand, Sacombank's leadership also admitted that recruiting high-quality personnel is a "big challenge".

Currently, this bank is recruiting high-quality personnel from many sources, including cooperation with technology, data management and AI companies...

Bank staff income improves after cuts

The average income of banking employees continues to improve amid staff streamlining. According to the financial report for the first quarter of 2025, 27 listed banks spent more than VND32,770 billion on personnel, up 10% over the same period, although the total number of employees decreased by nearly 1,600 people.

Average income levels are differentiated. TPBank leads with nearly 54 million VND/person/month, up 17% over the same period.

Meanwhile, Techcombank reduced from 49 million to 42 million VND/person/month; SHB reduced from 35.4 million to 28.15 million VND/person/month - although both still increased recruitment.

Recruit additional positions for machinery that cannot be replaced

Contrary to the trend of cuts, some banks continue to expand their workforce, showing a clear differentiation in human resource strategies in the industry.

In the group of state-owned commercial banks, BIDV leads with 26,323 employees, an increase of 254 people compared to the end of 2024; VietinBank increased by 59 people, bringing the total to 22,551 people.

In the joint stock commercial banking sector, 14 units recorded personnel growth, notably Techcombank, with an increase of 305 people, Eximbank with 187 more employees, OCB with 184 more people, MBBank with 160 people, HDBank with 133 more people, and VPBank with 123 more people...

A representative of a bank in Hanoi said that the cutting and recruitment are carried out in parallel, depending on the needs of each department, especially for positions where humans still play an irreplaceable role.

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BINH KHANH

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/ngan-hang-manh-tay-giam-nhan-su-thoi-so-hoa-20250510001753997.htm