33% are doing the minimum waiting for the axe hoping for severance
33% are doing the minimum waiting to retire
33% are barely doing the minimum waiting to see whether they got another job.
the other 1% work because they dont know any better.
No raises...everyone fired every other Tuesday...zero chance of being promoted or getting exceeds...of course people are skating...there is no incentive to row the boat on a sinking ship.
Risk is necessary. Paperwork isn't. Corporate risk is mostly CYA paperwork.
Risk will always be necessary, whether you like that or not. It is well documented that AI can’t think of anything new so the idea that AI can replace risk which is meant to be forward thinking, is near-sighted. If you think 1% of risk does something at this bank, then you’re either very junior or haven’t worked closely enough with them to understand their roles. If you want to be concerned about AI taking jobs, look at the remedial jobs that often follow very specific instructions - those are easily replaceable and sorry to say, often belong in the frontline.
@jg Less than zero. Actively impedes operations and client servicing.
@kb completely agree that Compliance will get decimated. Testing will be right sized as well. But there will be massive credit transformation. Still some ways to go in Operational Risk as well. Central SP&G needs to be targeted too.
@k3 I don't think you understand what a bank does. To manage credit risk, the bank credit analysts have to be smarter than the AI. Literally every bank and private fund has access to the same information. If WFC wants to be competitive they have to be smarter.
@nn Appreciate you circling back with that! It's pretty unfortunate but sadly telling that the LLM couldn't provide a simple quote without fabricating a source, and what might be the source is a WF C suite person who lists setting up outsourcing to India as an accomplishment.
Definitely some lessons to be learned here about bringing in something so untrustworthy to a Risk environment, of all things. Have a good day!
@jh, https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolai-farcas-b17b5628a/ Sorry for adding the ui at the end of his name. Nice to see that there are some employees not adverse to AI. He concludes "Is your board discussing workforce transformation with the same rigor as capital allocation?" I don't know why this board is giving @b9. AI is here to stay.
Compliance is the area that will right size. Significantly.
@jr when I say “dismantled”, I’m referring to components of it being moved. Some to CRO’s. Some to the front line. Central functions of the team, I’m not sure. Model could literally be its own entity. It’s supports all areas of the bank, not just credit related models. It will conceptually dismantled. Yes, the bank will still manage credit risk. Just not with +1000 people. And I’m not even getting into what AI does to credit oversight functions. Efficiencies to be had.
@jr and @fr. I agree with the first two sentences—credit risk is indeed core to banking, and it’s not going away. But I’d push back a little on the idea that more people are the primary solution to growing a credit card portfolio.
While human expertise is still important, the real differentiator in credit risk management today is the sophistication of the systems behind it. AI and machine learning have reached a point where they can analyze vast amounts of data, detect subtle patterns, and predict defaults more accurately than traditional models—and in many cases, more accurately than humans can. These systems can be built, trained, and continuously improved by smaller, highly specialized teams.
So yes, Wells Fargo (or any bank) needs people who understand credit risk. But more importantly, it needs people who understand how to build, validate, and oversee AI-driven risk systems. The future of credit risk isn’t just about hiring more underwriters—it’s about investing in smarter infrastructure.
@jr Fine, keep them then. There would still be tons of unnecessary corporate risk people.
@em Credit risk at a bank never gets dismantled. That what banks do, price and take credit risk. Other kinds of risk (interest rate and liquidity) will also never be dismantled. Of WF wants to grow its credit card portfolio, it needs more people who understand credit risk.
@je Wow this Nicolae Farcasiu on LInkedIn must know what he's talking about, despite having last interacted with anything 4 years ago. Why don't you find the source for that quote for us? For some reason it's not anywhere!
It's definitely real, since it's not like the AI that wrote that for you would just...make something up
In particular, what value does the "Chief Risk Office" bring to the table? Serious question.
@b2 this right here. Too many people trying to raise flags for the sake of raising flags. It's like being super woke and trying to find anything to make you mad.
After the account scandal, Wells Fargo was fined, put under the Fed asset cap, and responded by dramatically expanding risk and compliance. That was an understandable overcorrection — but it created a model that is largely reactive. More layers, more reviews, more decks. Built to prevent the last failure.
Risk has historically responded to events, not anticipated them.
AI changes that dynamic.
As Nicolai Farcasiu recently wrote on LinkedIn:
“AI isn’t coming for banking jobs. It’s already here.”
The opportunity is to move from reactive oversight to proactive, embedded, data-driven controls — continuous monitoring instead of after-the-fact review. The concern is that a structure built around thousands of hires to satisfy past consent orders may resist the very automation that would modernize it.
If the bank wants to move forward, risk can’t just scale headcount. It has to evolve the operating model.
Consent orders wrapped, and the current reg environment and Administration just doesn’t warrant 10,000 Risk employees.
Credit Risk is about to get dismantled. Compliance, wiped out. Testing, rightsized. Operational Risk, meh who knows. CLCRO, way too many people.
Are people working? Please, walk the floors at 4pm. Ghost towns.
I hate the culture this current regime has created here. I’ll come in 8 hours for 3, soon to be 4 days, but I’m doing sh-t. No incentive to try to be a hero. I didn’t get a raise. First time in 10 years. I know where some of the bodies are too and where there’s liability. FINRA has a whistle blower line you know.
@dj Yeah it was pretty desperate of him to to ask his little chatbot about Risk, of all things. It's the epitome of a solution in search of a problem. AI slop guy in a nutshell!
But I guess that's the kind of person who posts a wall of AI slop in the middle of the night for you 😂
@cw, Ah the AI slop guy strikes again.
@b9 Stop trying to shoehorn this trash everywhere. It’s obvious that you even prompted it to spin it in a way to tie it into AI. It’s pathetic.
@b2 "every "independent risk management" employee I've encountered has been a complete waste of space. "
A bunch of old CFMOS who are expert at impedance though excessive powerpoint decks
Instead of musical chairs risk folks play a similar game using back stabbing.
But but but. No buts, deck chairs are all lined up, been reviewed by second line, lol, the charade is over.
@b2 "I’d be using every slow day to pivot and upskill instead of just riding it out. "
That would put you in the top third, not retiring, looking for a job to apply those skills elsewhere.
Save money now. "Training to with with AI" is good advice, but it will only be relevant for a couple of years. Humans are very much the weak link in the system. Very soon AI won't need humans asking simplistic questions to do useful things. Your hamfisted prompts will have no economic value soon enough. But yeah, if you want to extend the ride on the coach another year, not a bad idea.
If I were in corp risk at Wells right now—laid off or just waiting for the severance email—I’d be using every slow day to pivot and upskill instead of just riding it out. The bank’s own leadership is openly talking about cutting heads and leaning harder into tech and AI, so the writing’s on the wall.
I don’t say that to minimize how toxic and demoralizing it feels; this setup gives you zero incentive to do more than the bare minimum. But if they’re going to gut layers of risk and middle management anyway, the best move is to treat this as a paid transition period: do what you need to keep your job, and quietly retool for the next one.
If I were in your shoes, I’d be focusing on three buckets:
Data skills: Python and SQL so you can actually pull, manipulate, and analyze risk data yourself instead of just reading decks someone else built.
Analytics/BI: Power BI or Tableau so you can turn that data into something useful for decision makers.
AI/automation: enough to understand how “controls embedded in systems” actually work and where they fail, because that’s where future risk jobs will sit.
On the AI side, I’d definitely learn prompt engineering, especially the newer Socratic style approaches. Risk analysis is already about asking structured questions, exploring edge cases, and not stopping at the first obvious answer—so why not use the computer to generate the full list of “what ifs” and angles you might miss when you’re tired or burned out? You still provide judgment, context, and escalation decisions, but you let the machine help you exhaust the space of questions.
A simple practical way to start:
Take a regulation, policy, or control you already know.
Ask an AI (using Socratic-style prompts) to: “List every failure mode, edge case, incentive problem, and data-quality risk related to X. For each, generate questions a risk manager should ask to detect or prevent it.”
Iterate: keep asking “What else? What assumptions are you making? What would break this?” until the model runs out of steam.
Do that repeatedly and you’re not just “learning AI,” you’re turning your existing risk brain into something that pairs well with AI instead of being replaced by it. If/when severance comes, you walk out not just as “another displaced risk manager,” but as someone who can talk data, automation, and AI-assisted risk in interviews—and that plays a lot better in the current market than “I did policy and oversight until they cut the org.”
every "independent risk management" employee I've encountered has been a complete waste of space. incentivized to impede business and exaggerate problems and stand in the way of people who are actually trying to serve clients and fix risk issues. it's so obvious they're just trying to save their own jobs by pouncing on even the tiniest mistake and offer no help, only tick boxes to try to show how valuable they are. they have zero self-awareness or respect for the fact that their salaries are paid by business handled by the business line employees they constantly torment. and there are so effing many of them. baffling that more haven't been laid off yet.
Corp risk here- I was asked to review and approve/ provide feedback on something that at least, AT LEAST, 3+ people had ALREADY reviewed and approved. Why in the world is this a thing? Because no one wants to take accountability. And there's also no point in taking accountability, i get it, as raises are not a thing and bonuses/ promotions aren't a thing. Why put any effort in? The inefficiencies are out of control and they don't even know where to start because they're are SO MANY. Manifesting my time at WF to come to and end, I can't handle the nonsense any longer.
This is 100% accurate.
I’m doing as little work as possible and praying for severance day. I’ve never been in such a a toxic environment in my life.