(Nov 7): DBS Group Holdings Ltd is retraining its staffers for new roles as it braces for artificial intelligence (AI) 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 have 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, the deputy chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said last month.
Tan — who became the CEO in March — previously even said that her job could be replaced by AI, Fortune reported in July. Her attitude extends to the disruptions AI could wrought throughout the bank, which employs more than 40,000 people. The lender has said earlier this year that it plans to cut around half, or about 4,000, of its contract and temporary staff workforce over the next three years.
“Think about bank tellers, people are not using cash anymore,” she said, adding that DBS had started training them to assist with video teller machines or to become relationship managers.
See also: DBS to raise dividends to 81 cents per quarter; UOB commits to 50% payout
“If your job is going to change, this is how it’s going to look,” Tan said about conversations with staff. “If you are in service, you are in a call centre, you might want to think about, how do you morph into a relationship manager?”
Meanwhile, despite its own adoption of AI, rival Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC) does not expect to see loss of jobs in the foreseeable future. “With the use of technology, you have not actually seen there’s any need for us to say that we have to release people,” CEO Helen Wong said at an earnings briefing on Friday.
Tan mirrored JPMorgan’s Dimon that the change is here to stay. “It’s sort of telling our staff, embrace it.”
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