The National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and the Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF) are targeting to upskill up to 100,000 finance professionals in Singapore with artificial intelligence (AI) skills over the next three years.
This will be done through IBF-accredited programmes by NTUC LearningHub, says Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong at The Association of Banks in Singapore's (ABS) annual dinner on June 25.
“We cannot scale AI in finance by building tools alone. We need people who know how to use them, question them, govern them and improve them,” he notes.
The partnership between NTUC and IBF builds on NTUC’s AI-Ready SG initiative, which helps professionals, managers and executives (PMEs) and workers in an AI-enabled future. It also advances the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed between NTUC, IBF and seven key financial industry associations in 2024.
“AI is reshaping jobs and skills across the financial sector. It is critical that our PMEs, including those in the financial sector, are equipped not just to understand these technologies but to apply them effectively and responsibly at work. We hope this will catalyse more employers and sectors to come forward and do the same, so that even more PMEs can benefit from meaningful upskilling opportunities,” says NTUC’s assistant secretary-general Patrick Tay.
The way Gan sees it, AI will change jobs. It will lead to the automation of certain tasks and the redesigning of some roles. New jobs will also emerge due to AI.
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“The real measure of AI adoption is not just the productivity it creates, but whether workers can move with the technology as jobs change,” he says.
