Nordea Bank AB (STO: NDA-SEK) announced 6,000 job cuts last week, in a harbinger of new developments in the banking industry. These job cuts sliced away as much as a tenth of the bank's workforce. Experts predict that the banking industry, and bankers at large, are vulnerable to "radical overhaul." Some even believe that the size of the employee population in the industry will be cut by as much as half, in a decade's time. This is due to the rise of digitization and artificial intelligence in the banking industry.

After the global financial crisis, banks have already become much more sparsely staffed. In fact, the industry was cut by as much as 14%, by some estimates of the European financial scene.

According to experts, such technological overhauls represent the "future of banking." Many immersed in the industry believe that only the most digitally proficient and efficient banks will last the purge. All the less technologically and digitally advanced firms will be the first to go.

Although banks acknowledge that transforming their existing systems in a more technologically favorable direction is a costly endeavor, the fact that the bank will have fewer salaries to pay will gradually help these numbers even out. Representatives from Nordea believe they are the first to grasp upon the paradigm shift in banking, at large. On the other hand, to do so, the bankers must ignore the unions' complaints.