More than 1,000 tech roles chopped at Capital One

US bank Capital One is the latest financial firm to announce job cuts, with 1,100 staff in its agile development team to be let go.

The job cuts come as the global finance sector readjusts amid gloomy economic forecasts. Whenever the financial services sector makes cuts, IT job losses are inevitable as an industry heavily reliant on tech.

Capital One said the agile development jobs were essential to get the company’s digital transformation started, but now the work will be integrated into “core” IT roles.

“The agile role in our tech organisation was critical to our earlier transformation phases, but as our organisation matured, the natural next step is to integrate agile delivery processes directly into our core engineering practices,” said a Capital One statement.

The bank said this would help it deliver on the next phase of its tech transformation. “By shifting oversight of execution and risk management to the teams already building and delivering software solutions, we further increase team collaboration and delivery speed,” the statement said.

“This announcement is not a reflection on these individuals or the work they have driven on behalf of our technology organisation. Their contributions have been critical to maturing our software delivery model and our overall tech transformation.”

Capital One said it was currently hiring tech professionals with cloud, data, machine learning and cyber security skills.

The redundancy announcement is one of a slew, which includes the giants of financial services as well as smaller fintech companies. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have each reduced staff numbers by thousands in recent months. Peer-to-peer fintech firm LendingClub cut its workforce by 14% last week as high interest rates stifle demand for its lending services.

Meanwhile, UK payments infrastructure financial technology firm Paddle is reducing its workforce of over 350 by 8% after a boost to its business during the Covid-19 pandemic came to an end.

The company, which provides payments infrastructure to software-as-a-service providers, said it experienced “incredible levels of growth” during the pandemic when people and businesses began working remotely and digitally. But it said this boost to business had been replaced by new challenges, which are having the opposite effect.