Morgan Stanley just announced fourth quarter earnings, and is providing detail to investors on a cost-saving plan called Project Streamline.
During a conference call, CEO James Gorman uttered a sentence that should make the bank's staff shudder.
"Too many employees based in high-cost centers are doing work that can sensibly be done in lower-cost centers," he said.
"Now is the time to tackle head-on our infrastructure costs."
The reference to "lower-cost centers" likely means the bank is looking to shift jobs either overseas (off-shoring) or to low-cost locations in the US (near-shoring).
His comments echo a line in his presentation, where there is reference to optimizing the bank's location strategy.
Morgan Stanley would not be the first bank to pull such a move.
Goldman Sachs has moved thousands of jobs to places like Salt Lake City, Utah, while Deutsche Bank has a big office in Jacksonville, Florida.