Nordea Bank Abp is putting as many as 1,500 jobs at risk as it expects artificial intelligence to make processes more efficient and cut costs.

The reduction of as much as 5% of the workforce through next year is part of a structural efficiency improvement, the Helsinki-based bank said in a statement Tuesday. The move supports Nordea’s 2030 strategy, which is centered on technology, data and artificial intelligence.

Nordea will book restructuring costs of about €190 million ($219 million) in the first quarter, it said. Cost savings will amount to at least €150 million from 2028, Nordea said.

The job cuts are likely to be in support functions rather than customer-facing areas, “as per peer bank precedent,” though Nordea has not disclosed which areas will be affected, Citigroup Inc analyst Shrey Srivastava said in a note to clients.

Srivastava also said a large portion of the financial benefits from AI are likely to be recycled into further investments such as cross-selling savings and private banking offerings.

Nordea is the latest bank to shed staff in favor of AI models, joining global peers such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc., ING Groep NV and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Worldwide, lenders will cut as many as 200,000 jobs in the next three to five years as artificial intelligence encroaches on tasks currently carried out by human workers, analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence estimated last year. Chief information and technology officers surveyed for BI indicated that on average they expect 3% of their workforce to be cut, according to the report.

At Nordea, some of the affected employees will be offered other roles internally, the bank said. The changes will be subject to relevant union negotiation and consultations and Nordea plans to support employees with learning new skills.

–By Evelina Youcefi (Bloomberg)