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

(Bloomberg) -- DBS Group Holdings Ltd. is retraining its staffers for new roles as it braces for artificial intelligence to reshape jobs and skills.

Singapore’s largest lender will not be hiring new people for jobs that will be replaced by AI, according to Chief Executive Officer Tan Su Shan. “Those who are in those jobs that will be changed, we will have to take them out of their jobs and really start training them, which is what we’ve been doing for years,” she said in a Bloomberg Television interview with Haslinda Amin on Friday.

Financial institutions globally are grappling with AI tools as they aim to speed up processes and save costs, though these can potentially replace thousands of jobs. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon has consistently touted the opportunities offered by AI and that the banking giant already has hundreds of use cases for the technology, which will likely grow.

In Singapore, the three major banks are retraining all 35,000 of their local employees over the next one to two years to prepare for changes wrought by AI. The lenders will help ensure reskilling support to people whose roles change from AI or help staff pivot to “adjacent career pathways,” Chee Hong Tat, deputy chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said last month.

“If your job is going to change, this is how it’s going to look,” Tan said about conversations with staff. “If you’re in service, you’re in a call center, you might want to think about, how do you morph into a relationship manager?”

--With assistance from Naman Tandon and Keziah Wei.

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