CBA culls as many as 230 roles, with the bulk in IT departments

Commonwealth Bank will slash its technology and risk management teams under cuts revealed to the Finance Sector Union in recent days.

Commonwealth Bank will slash as many as 230 jobs from the group, as it beats the books into shape ahead of the end of financial year, but has denied claims from unions it has cut jobs in its financial crimes teams.

The bank notified the Finance Sector Union of the move last week, with the cuts rolling out across CBA in recent days.

This comes as CBA prepares to post its third quarter trading update on May ahead of its full year results announcement in August.

The bulk of the 224 job cuts will hit CBA’s information and technology sectors.

At least 158 jobs will be eliminated in the operations and technology teams.

The FSU said it had been told 18 of these jobs were being outsourced.

Some staff may be redeployed across CBA in other roles.

The bank will also cut 38 jobs from x15 ventures, CBA’s venture building outfit, largely covering the team behind the Cheddar deals discovery app.

CBA launched Cheddar in November 2021 in a bid to attract interest from Millennial and Gen Z customers.

An additional 25 jobs will be carved out of the financial services and risk management teams, in roles the FSU alleged were part of the bank’s fight against fraud and scams.

However, a CBA spokesman said the bank had made no job or role reductions “in our fraud and scams teams”.

“In fact we have increased the numbers of people working there over the last two quarters specifically,” he said.

A further three jobs will go in CBA’s global markets teams.

Finance Sector Union secretary Julia Angrisano said the bank’s decision was “obscene and immoral”. Picture: Hollie Adams

CBA has also eliminated as many as 10 roles across marketing and corporate services, in cuts separate to those disclosed to the FSU.

The FSU said it was seeking job guarantees for CBA staff as part of negotiations with the bank in the upcoming enterprise bargaining negotiations.

FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano said CBA was cutting jobs in teams which were part of the bank‘s fights against fraud and scams.

“Australian consumers have faced record losses from scams over the past year with $3.1bn stolen and yet the CBA is now sacking a substantial number of workers from its financial crimes area,” she said.

Ms Angrisano said CBA’s job cuts were “nothing but a naked grab for profits at the expense of bank workers”.

“The CBA has seen net interest income rise by 19 per cent as mortgage interest rates have gone up but that’s not enough for this bank,” she said.

“The CBA consistently puts profits before people and in this case, we know these jobs are being axed to boost profits.”

“It’s an obscene and immoral decision which staff at the CBA don’t deserve.”

Ms Angrisano said CBA had already axed 13 bank branches this year “and now those staff who remain at the bank will be called on to work even harder and even longer hours to cover the work that these retrenched workers currently perform”.

“We will be pressing the Commonwealth Bank to stop offshoring Australian jobs to India, to stop forced redundancies and stop closing branches,” she said.

“That’s because of an overwhelming response from our members at the CBA that job security is a key issue and the bank needs to do more to guarantee job security.”

Of the job cuts at CBA 197 will be in NSW, 16 in Western Australia, nine in Victoria, five in Queensland, and one in South Australia.

CBA moved to offshore almost 113 roles from its technology teams to the bank’s Indian subsidiary last year, this follows an almost 370 roles the bank eliminated in its Australian business in 2021.

A CBA spokesman said the bank had hired more than 10,000 staff since 2021.

“To support the continuous improvement of our customers’ experience, we regularly review the skills we need and how we’re organised,” he said.

“That means from time to time some roles and work will change or no longer be required.”

The spokesman said the bank would “endeavour to find other roles for the people affected although that’s not always possible”.

“Such decisions are never easy nor are taken lightly. In those cases we work closely with our people to provide career transition support,” he said.

The bank reported a record $5.15bn half-year profit in February.

Originally published as CBA culls as many as 230 roles, with the bulk in IT departments