Bank Of America To Cut Up To 8,000 Jobs At Its Retail Banking Arm: FT

[Purveyor]

Source: Marketwatch

Bank of America Corp. BAC, +0.60% is planning to shed up to 8,000 jobs at its retail bank, the Financial Times reported Wednesday, citing comments from the president of retail banking at a conference this week.

Thong Nguyen said the bank had 68,400 employees at the end of the first quarter, and that number would likely fall to the low 60s, the FT reported.

It cited people with knowledge of the program saying the cuts would come mostly from attrition of back-office employees, meaning staff would not be replaced when they leave. Shares rose 1.5% in early trade, but are down 20% in the year so far, while the S&P 500 has gained 1.8%.

Read more: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bank-of-america-to-cut-up-to-8000-jobs-at-its-retail-banking-arm-ft-2016-06-15

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Humans Will Have To Go As Bank of America Gears Up To Go Dgital

Bank of America is shrinking its consumer banking division by 8,000 people as it prepares to go digital.

The bank has already considerably reduced the staffing numbers: from 100,000 in 2009 to 68,400 in Q1 2016. Thong Nguyen, Bank of America’s president of retail banking and co-head of consumer banking, expects the numbers to go down to “the low 60s”.

Bank of America is transforming its retail financial centres into digital ones, hence the job cuts, although no timeframe have been announced for these reductions.

Earlier this year, there were reports that Bank of America is preparing big layoffs across its investment banking and trading divisions.

The bank joins other top tier financial institutions in its job- and cost-cutting spree.

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http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bank-of-america-to-cut-up-to-8000-jobs-at-its-retail-banking-arm-ft-2016-06-15

[Initech]

1. I left a credit union after they went digital. I will do the same with B of A.

[tom_kelly]

3. I only use credit unions. How does a digital system effect customers? n/t

[Initech]

4. You go into the branch and you do not talk to a person.

There's no one there to greet you and there's no one working behind the counter. All that's there is a monitor, a vacuum tube, and a microphone. It's the weirdest experience at a bank I've ever seen.

[tom_kelly]

5. Thank you. I used to go into a BofA that was rolling this out.

A customer always paid me with a BofA check and the bank was a couple of doors down. It was wierd. I kept saying "I don't know why we're doing it this way when there are tellers right over there." Yes, I'd cancel my account if I was faced with this.

[Initech]

7. Yeah this was at a credit union where I had a car loan at the time.

I switched over to a much better credit union and haven't had a problem since.

[yallerdawg]

2. I was a bank teller in the late 'eighties.

Then the young-guns who had bought the bank from "the founder" installed this contraption called an "Automatic Teller Machine" outside the door and it "worked" 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I was not a bank teller by the end of 1989.

[byronius]

6. They're closing down branches all over CA.

And yes, my business will be leaving them soon. For some reason they think everyone respects shark-like assholery. We've been planning to leave since they started the process. Won't be long.

[seabeckind]

8. BofA did the Walmart model.

Using a couple of SCOTUS decisions that freed them from predatory practices and allowed them to treat the entire US like a big playground, they expanded by absorbing smaller banks. They weren't alone, the other big guys were doing it also.

So now they have hit the limit on creating profits using returns on investment in their orgs and are slashing staff. Profits go up.

You, as their customer now have a real problem. Yep, you can take your business elsewhere. The problem is: where?



I abandoned my credit union last year because they switched from a federal CU to a state CU. The state doesn't regulate the same as the fed. A state CU has the line blurred between investment and banking activities. The customer isn't a member of the co-op, he is just a source of funds and the returns are designed to reward the big "members", rather than equally.

So I switched to a regional bank that offers better services, better returns and is privately owned, ie, not as easily absorbed.

Time to re-regulate the big banks and break them up.