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Banks, insurers, and accounting firms in the UK should prepare to fund the retraining of millions of employees whose jobs may be displaced by artificial intelligence, financial services workers’ unions will urge at the Trades Union Congress next month.
As reported by the Financial Times on Tuesday, bank workers’ union Accord will push for a major reskilling programme for the UK financial sector’s 2.5mn employees in a motion to the annual conference.
“AI-driven job displacement is predicted to be higher in financial services than in any other sector,” the Accord motion, published on the TUC’s website, states. A report from Citigroup in June warned that up to 54 per cent of banking jobs and 48 per cent of insurance roles could be lost to automation.
The TUC last year introduced a blueprint bill aimed at regulating AI in the workplace. The proposed legislation includes new legal rights, such as a requirement for transparency when employers use AI, and safeguards against unfair dismissal for employees at risk of being replaced by the technology.
“Other countries are regulating workplace AI so that staff and employers know where they stand,” said TUC assistant general secretary Kate Bell, highlighting laws in the US, China and Canada. “The UK urgently needs to put new safeguards in place to protect workers from exploitation and discrimination.”
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Bank of China vice-chair and president Liu Jin has resigned for “personal reasons”the Chinese state-owned bank announced in a filing on Sunday. In a separate statement, the bank said that chair and party secretary Ge Haijiao will assume the role of acting president until a successor is appointed.
Born in 1967, Liu’s resignation for personal reasons comes as a surprise, given that he has not yet reached the official retirement age of 60. Press reports note that Liu’s exit coincides with a new phase of Chinese anti-corruption inspections, focusing on major state-owned banks and financial regulators.
Liu, who was appointed as president of BoC in April 2021 and then promoted to vice-chair in June that same year, previously served at China Everbright Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and China Development Bank.
His departure follows that of Liu Liange, the former chair of BoC, who left his position in March 2023 and subsequently confessed in April this year to accepting over Rmb121mn ($17mn) in bribes.
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UK banks are gearing up for a potential surge in residential development financing, spurred by the new Labour government’s policies to tackle a UK housing shortageaccording to a report by Bloomberg News on Tuesday.
Following Labour’s landslide general election victory in July, the new government has placed house building at the centre of its economic strategy, aiming to reverse years of missed targets under the previous Conservative government.
Residential development lenders surveyed by Bloomberg, including OakNorth Bank, Shawbrook and Investec, are expecting increased demand for house-building loans over the next five years, particularly as Labour’s reforms to the UK’s strict planning rules begin to take effect.
“We now have a government in place that we can expect to be consistent for at least the next five years, meaning there is more certainty than there has been for some time,” said Deepesh Thakrar, senior director of debt finance at OakNorth Bank. “As a result, we expect demand for borrowing to increase.”
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The Bank of New York Mellon has agreed to pay a $5mn settlement with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission for repeatedly failing to accurately report millions of swap transactionsthe regulator announced on Monday.
According to the CFTC, BNY Mellon failed to correctly report at least 5mn swap transactions and inadequately supervised its swap dealer business from 2018 through 2023.
In addition to the civil penalty, BNY will retain an independent consultant to review its compliance programme, the CFTC said.
“BNY takes its regulatory responsibilities seriously and is pleased to have resolved this matter,” a bank spokesperson said in a statement.