Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP via Getty Images
The Briefing
- Executives at Peru’s largest banks warned at the FELABAN 60th Annual Assembly in Lima that AI agents now perform the foundational tasks once assigned to entry-level analysts — instantly and without a salary.
- Credicorp, Peru’s largest financial holding company, already has more than 90% of its workforce using AI tools, with over 100 active use cases in production across the group.
- A Stanford Digital Economy Lab study found a 13% employment decline among workers aged 22–25 in AI-exposed roles; PwC’s AI Jobs Barometer 2026 found that conventional entry-level vacancies have declined while AI-integrated positions grew 35% since 2019.
Peru’s banking sector is quietly shrinking the entry point into professional life. At the 60th Annual Assembly of FELABAN — Latin America’s most consequential financial summit, held in Lima from November 3 to 6 — Interbank VP Claudio Querol gave a number to what hiring managers have been whispering for months: AI agents can now execute the foundational tasks that once defined junior roles, from building Excel models to assembling PowerPoint decks, in seconds and without a salary.
This isn’t a future problem. It’s a restructuring already underway at Peru’s largest financial institutions — and recent graduates are absorbing the first impact.
When AI Does the Analyst’s Homework
Querol, who leads Data, Analytics & AI at Interbank, framed the shift as a structural rethinking of how banks are organized — not simply a productivity upgrade. Speaking at the FELABAN assembly, he suggested that organizations will likely move away from large pools of junior staff as AI agents handle the routine analytical and administrative tasks those positions were built around.
The warning carries institutional weight. Interbank signed a direct enterprise agreement with Anthropic in August 2026 to integrate generative and agentic AI into its banking operations — becoming the first Peruvian bank to establish that kind of relationship with a frontier AI developer, bypassing the cloud marketplaces that most regional banks rely on.
Benjamin Chavez, head of data and AI at BBVA Peru, described the same dynamic from an operational perspective: “Many junior tasks can today be done by an agent in seconds. That forces us to redesign the learning model.”
Credicorp Bets on Retraining, Not Replacement
The Credicorp group — Peru’s largest financial conglomerate and parent of BCP — has positioned itself differently from institutions that frame AI adoption primarily around cost reduction. Executives there have consistently emphasized reskilling as the strategic response to automation’s advance.
Rafael Lemor, AI lead at Credicorp, has described the company’s approach as building “a corporate intelligence that not only automates but learns, collaborates, and decides with ethical judgment,” framing AI agents as a new interface layer rather than a simple headcount substitute.
At the group level, more than 90% of Credicorp’s collaborators already use AI tools, a figure that underscores how thoroughly the technology has penetrated day-to-day workflow — not just in specialized teams, but across the entire organization.
The Ladder Is Getting Shorter
The concern is structural, not merely cyclical. The PwC AI Jobs Barometer 2026 found that AI-exposed entry-level positions now prioritize competencies once reserved for seasoned professionals — decision-making, judgment, and analytical thinking — rather than the execution tasks that historically defined early-career roles.
That recalibration is already reshaping who gets hired and what for. Junior analyst classes at some banking institutions have shrunk by as much as two-thirds in certain areas, while firms simultaneously shift hiring toward AI-skilled talent from recent graduate pools.
The regional picture reinforces Peru’s local warning. In Mexico, entry-level job growth slowed from 9% to below 3% annually between 2021 and 2025, according to IMCO, as companies restructure junior roles amid AI adoption. The International Labor Organization’s Global Employment Trends for Youth 2026 estimates that up to 5.6 million young people worldwide could become unemployed under an unfavorable automation scenario.
A Skills Gap Universities Aren’t Closing Fast Enough
According to PwC’s AI Jobs Barometer 2026, more than one in three young workers globally hold jobs with medium to high exposure to AI-driven task change — and entry-level skills requirements are evolving faster than current education systems can keep pace. A separate analysis by the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, using ADP payroll records covering millions of U.S. workers, documented a 13% relative decline in employment for workers aged 22 to 25 in the most AI-exposed occupations, with the steepest effects in customer service and software development.
For Peru, that gap carries specific stakes. Some 72% of Peruvians have already interacted with AI-powered financial services, according to a 2026 Experian Peru study, signaling that consumer-facing adoption is well ahead of workforce preparation.
The question executives at FELABAN largely left unanswered is whether companies will create enough new entry points — roles built around AI oversight, interpretation, and coordination — to absorb the young professionals being squeezed out of the positions that used to teach them those skills in the first place. Reducing the number of young professionals entering the industry today may create shortages of experienced leaders a decade from now, a risk banks acknowledge in private but rarely address in their hiring strategies.
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