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Finance workers across Australia fear we could be seeing the start of 'sacking season' as banks clear the decks ahead of Christmas to ramp-up the rollout of job-destroying AI.

In contrast to their rivals NAB, Westpac has taken a more subtle approach to jettisoning staff, with over 250 workers earmarked for redundancy since the start of October.

Westpac used the cover of NAB's devastating jobs wipeout on Tuesday to announce over 200 redundancies across numerous areas of the bank.

It follows 102 workers in Westpac's Risk, Institutional Banking and Finance teams being shown the door a fortnight ago – a clear breach of its promise to workers that its engagement with Catalyst was not a job-cutting exercise.

The FSU estimates more than 10,000 banking roles have disappeared over the last two years but more pain could be on the way for workers who are already struggling with picking up the slack from their departed colleagues.

Although a range of macro-economic excuses have been offered by the banks, the FSU believes the seductive automation potential of AI is really driving their hunger for the emerging technology.

A lack of strong regulatory guardrails for AI is another factor adding to workers' sense of vulnerability.

FSU National Assistant Secretary Nicole McPherson fronted the Select Committee on Adopting AI on Thursday to answer member's questions and push the union's case for greater oversight of AI in the finance sector.

The FSU is also meeting with staff at Westpac and NAB to decide the next steps in the fight to save banking in Australia from either disappearing overseas through offshoring or disappearing altogether.

Quotes attributable to National Assistant Secretary Nicole McPherson

"These stealthy job cuts at Westpac are the Christmas gift no one asked for, and the FSU holds grave concerns that Westpac has more in the works," Ms McPherson said.

"All banks need to look at the bigger picture and see their employees as more than just numbers on a balance sheet.

"They are people with families who support other people with families and the value they bring to a company can never be fully replaced by a machine."

Media contact: Sam Burgess 0434 165 630 or [email protected]