The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) is planning to cut a further 176 technology and engineering jobs, according to the local finance union, which is accusing the nation’s largest bank of readvertising some lost roles under its Indian subsidiary.

The proposed redundancies were announced to staff around the start of the new financial year, Information Age understands.

CBA also informed staff of around 100 other planned job cuts last week in its operations, business banking, institutional banking, human resources, and retail banking teams, according to the Finance Sector Union (FSU).

The bank had engaged in “fake redundancies” by advertising roles with similar job titles and responsibilities under its CBA India arm, the FSU alleged on Friday, citing India’s lower labour costs and weaker worker protections as potential factors.

CBA has advertised at least 37 jobs in India in the last month according to its website, including numerous roles in software, data, and security engineering.

A CBA spokesperson denied the union’s claim.

“The roles currently advertised in India are separate and unrelated to the proposed changes in Australia,” they said in a statement.

While CBA’s Australian staffing levels have remained around 37,000 full-time workers in recent years, its Indian subsidiary has more than doubled from around 3,000 staff in 2022 to around 7,000 by mid-2025.

‘Offshoring for even greater profits’

CBA’s net profit for the first half of the 2025-26 financial year rose 5 per cent to $5.367 billion, the bank announced in February.

FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano said it is an “outrage” that one of the world’s most profitable banks appears to be offshoring more jobs.

“This is a bank that regularly turns billions of dollars in profit and claims to invest in skilling and developing local workers, yet continues to brutally axe local jobs in favour of offshoring for even greater profits,” she said.

Angrisano criticised CBA chief executive Matt Comyn, saying, “If he is genuine about building Australian capability he can start by not giving Australian jobs to our global partners and by being straight with his own staff.”

The FSU confirmed it had lodged a formal dispute with CBA “to disclose the true rationale behind the job cuts or potentially face further action at the Fair Work Commission”.

The union previously accused CBA of offshoring ICT roles to India in 2025.

‘Some tasks and skills required are changing’

CBA had privately attributed its latest job cuts to “workflow automation, organisational realignments, streamlining, and the consolidation of existing functions”, the union alleged.

While the bank did not provide specific reasons for its latest cuts when approached for comment, its spokesperson said CBA regularly reviews “the roles and skills we need to deliver the best customer outcomes”.

“Some tasks and skills required are changing, some roles are reducing as programs finish, and new roles are being created,” they said.

CBA has cut hundreds of Australian technology jobs in recent years, but has denied the changes are a direct result of its increasing use of artificial intelligence technologies.

The company’s spokesperson said workers whose roles are affected by workplace changes are offered “practical support through CBA’s $90 million Future Workforce Program”, including career transition assistance, skills assessments, and access to internal job vacancies.

The bank announced its Future Workforce Program in February and said it was designed to “help employees build skills” as part of an “AI-ready workforce”.

At the time, Comyn told investors that while AI was helping to “improve and automate” some of the bank’s processes, the technology would be implemented at “multiple speeds” across the organisation to give it a “competitive advantage” over its competitors.

Other Australian companies which have recently been criticised for offshoring technology jobs include Telstra, Officeworks, and Woolworths.