Bendigo Bank job cuts: Union calls on federal government to prevent further AI job losses

The Finance Sector Union calls for the reversal of Bendigo Bank’s latest partnerships with Infosys and Genpact, slamming the bank for its silence on the proportion of jobs being impacted by AI.

As Bendigo Bank plans to accelerate its Productivity Program and deliver this strategy by 2030, after announcing, on Thursday (9 April), new strategic partnerships with Indian IT service and AI provider Infosys (a seven-year partnership) and American IT company Genpact (a six-year partnership).

“The federal government has ... demonstrated incredible naivety when it comes to its light-touch approach to regulating AI,” the Finance Sector Union (FSU) said.

The bank said these partnerships will lead to greater productivity, more capacity to innovate, and stronger risk management across its operations.

It added that the partnership will provide faster onboarding, processing, and better support for a smoother banking experience for its 2.9 million customers.

Although the bank admitted during its Thursday (9 April) meeting that these changes will impact workers in its technology and business operation teams, it failed to outline the number of staff who will be affected.

“The fact that Bendigo Bank cannot say how many jobs will be impacted inspires zero confidence that management understands the full ramifications of what they are doing,” FSU said.

The union condemned the bank’s move and estimated that hundreds of jobs could be affected by the partnerships, adding that it is unlikely that any area of the bank will be spared in the next phase of its Productivity Program.

“The first wave of cuts [is] expected over the coming months in the technology division,” the union said.

The union said that other areas that will be impacted are business and agribusiness, lending assessment and fulfilment, third-party banking fulfilment, lending operations – consumer, customer processing and wealth operations, customer remediation, mortgage help, operational excellence, finance, financial crime operations, and contact centre.

“It’s now up to the government to explain how these dramatic cuts are in keeping with their own AI plan to ‘ensure [AI] adoption is transparent, safe and responsibly managed’ …. Australians urgently need regulation that will genuinely protect workers,” it added.

Bendigo Bank chief executive Richard Fennell said: “Decisions that impact our people are never easy. We acknowledge this will be a challenging time for our people, and we are committed to leading these changes with compassion, care, and respect.”

FSU expressed concerns that the impacts on Bendigo Bank’s business operations will have direct and flow-on effects on customers and communities who rely on the bank for their banking needs. It added that sensitive information may be at risk if customer data is housed offshore.

The union’s national secretary, Julia Angrisano, said: “We are now seeing in real time the disastrous consequences of a complete lack of AI regulation, and Australian workers are paying the ultimate price.

“The idea of Bendigo Bank being a community bank is now dead. It has completely abandoned any pretence of being Australia’s most trusted bank.”

Bendigo announced the closure of 10 branches across five regional communities in June 2025.

This news follows cuts by other companies with AI ambitions, including Atlassian in March, and Telstra and Accenture in February.