HSBC retiring a third of applications amid AI-powered "reengineering"

HSBC is retiring a third of its applications in the next two years as part of an AI-powered tech transformation.

At the same time it is moving from a cloud-first strategy to a "more mature" hybrid approach.

In an earnings call Wednesday, the $68bn-revenue bank's CEO said it had already retired more than 1,100 of the 3,000 applications it deemed "legacy or non-strategic" as it freed up "investment capacity" to spend on AI.

Group CEO Georges Elhedery said generative AI projects made up the biggest tech investment, including a "fundamental reengineering of our processes end to end... to allow genAI to help us redesign the process in a much simpler way, and also allow genAI to be integrated in the process."

The bank currently runs more than 9,000 applications and plans to "demise" 3,000 by 2028.

In response to analysts, Elhedery said "you could broadly assume" 20% of the bank's expenses went towards IT, in line with numbers he gave in 2022.

The bank's operating expenses totalled $36.4 billion in 2025, up $3 billion on 2024, an increase its earnings report said "included higher planned spend and investment in technology."

HSBC's AI returns

The bank is already seeing the benefits of the more than 600 AI use cases it has in place, Elhedery told analysts.