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By Steve Slater
LONDON, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Banks across the world may cut upto half their jobs and branches in the next 10 years as theyfight to stay relevant and profitable in the face of sweepingtechnological change, the former head of British bank Barclays said on Tuesday.
"The number of branches and people employed in the financialservices sector may decline by as much as 50 percent over thenext 10 years, and even in a less harsh scenario I predict theywill decline by at least 20 percent," Antony Jenkins, who wasousted as chief executive in July, said in a speech.
For Barclays, that would see between 26,000 and 66,000 jobscut worldwide, and 280-700 branches shut in Britain.
Jenkins had cut scores of branches and was midway through aplan to cut 19,000 staff when he was fired in July.
In his speech, titled "Approaching the Uber moment infinancial services", he said technology was "an unstoppableforce" that would improve customer service, risk management andefficiency and see new banks become household names.
The amount of capital being provided to new start-ups andfinancial technology firms meant the industry was not far fromcausing "real disruption", he said.
Traditional banks would struggle to implement technology atthe same pace as new start-ups, and this would drag downreturns, he said.
"The barriers to entry are quite high in financial services,so that will allow the incumbents to probably last longer thanin many other industries.
"The risk is that incumbents will be pushed into thisutility, capital-heavy role that we've seen in other industrieslike telecoms. Ultimately, that will become intolerable toshareholders, so we could see consolidation and mergers," hesaid, adding that this was likely to come later in the 10-yearperiod.
He said banks also faced a challenge in keeping orattracting the best technology staff, who preferred to work inSilicon Valley or in other industries.
"If banks want to really compete for talent successfully,they are going to have to make themselves interesting places towork. It can't just be about the money, because frankly themoney isn't going to be there the way it was before 2008,"Jenkins said. (Reporting by Steve Slater; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
