Bank workers to lose jobs to digitization

Several bank workers risk of losing their jobs once the banking industry completes the digitization of its processes.

"With the digitization of the banking processes, the desirable and necessary positions will no longer be needed soon. Daghang mga bank workers ang eventually mawagtangan og trabaho tungod ani," said Nicholou Malazarte, national president of the Union Bank Employees Association (UBEA), in an interview with The FREEMAN.

Malazarte said that positions such as tellers, credit investigators/appraisers, accounting staff and others will be gone once the digitization will be in full swing two to three years from now.

He said that even if the bank digitization project is still in its initiatory stage, there were already several bank employees who lost their jobs.

"We want to be assured that despite of the digitization, bank workers will not be displaced as well as our security of tenure," Malazarte said.

He added that the banking industry is going into digitization in order to cut cost, nothing else.

UBEA has 670 union members nationwide, and has over a hundred members in Cebu.

Malazarte does not have an exact number as to how many bank workers will be affected, but he said there will be thousands who are already on the verge of losing their employment.

Various labor unions and organization in Cebu will meet here on September 29 to tackle the issue and come up with a unified stand.