Singapore’s DBS Girds for AI as Tellers Morph Into Bankers

(Bloomberg) — DBS Group Holdings Ltd. is retraining its staff for new roles as it prepares for artificial intelligence to reshape jobs and skills.

Singapore’s largest lender will not hire new people for jobs that will be replaced by artificial intelligence, according to Chief Executive Tan Su Shan. “We’re going to have to lay off the people who are in jobs that are going to change and start actually training them, which is what we’ve been doing for years,” he said in an interview with Haslinda Amin on Bloomberg Television on Friday.

Financial institutions globally are grappling with AI tools as they aim to speed up processes and save costs; but these could potentially replace thousands of jobs. Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase & Co. has consistently talked about the opportunities presented by artificial intelligence, saying the banking giant already has hundreds of use cases for the technology that will likely grow.

In Singapore, three major banks are retraining all 35,000 of their local employees over the next one to two years to prepare for changes driven by AI. Chee Hong Tat, deputy governor of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said last month that lenders will help provide reskilling support to people whose roles are changing from AI or helping staff “adjacent career paths”.

“If your business is going to change, this is what it’s going to look like,” Tan said of discussions with staff. “If you’re in service, if you’re in a call center, you might want to think about: how do you become a relationship manager?”

–With help from Naman Tandon and Keziah Wei.

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