Singapore pushes financial firms to use AI for job creation, not just cost-cutting

Singapore urges financial firms to use AI to create better jobs

SINGAPORE, May 20 (Reuters) - Singapore's banks and financial firms should use artificial intelligence to create better jobs and train workers for higher-value roles, not just cut costs, Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong said on Wednesday. Gan's comments come a day after Standard Chartered (STAN.L), opens new tab said it would cut more than 7,000 jobs over four years as it steps up AI adoption. HSBC (HSBA.L), opens new tab, CEO Georges Elhedery said on Wednesday that generative AI would "destroy certain jobs" and "create new jobs", while urging staff to embrace the ⁠change. "For Singapore, the answer cannot be to hold back change. If we slow AI adoption, we will weaken our competitiveness and ultimately hurt workers more, not less," Gan said at the DBS Leaders Dialogue event in Singapore. A DBS report released at the event ranked Singapore third among 15 AI financial hubs, behind New York and San Francisco, and said the city-state was the open-market hub closest to combining AI capability with institutional trust at scale. Gan said Singapore's ⁠next phase as a financial hub would depend on moving AI from experimentation into enterprise-wide adoption, ensuring it creates good jobs, and building trust, safety and security into the way AI is developed and used. "When firms implement AI, they should not only ⁠ask: how much cost can we save? They should also ask: What new roles can we create? How can existing workers be trained for them..." DBS Group (DBSM.SI), opens new tab CEO Tan Su ⁠Shan said Singapore's small size could become a strength if AI helped its limited workforce do more, describing the technology as a potential "great multiplier". "Small ⁠amplified by AI means our limited workforce can now do many more things than we could before," Tan said, adding that companies needed to take employees and customers along because "humans matter". Reporting by Yantoultra Ngui; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Artificial Intelligence Yantoultra Ngui Thomson Reuters Yantoultra Ngui is the Southeast Asia Deals Correspondent of Reuters in Singapore, covering M&A and capital market activities in a region that is fast emerging as one of the world's biggest economies. He previously was a reporter at Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Notably, he was part of WSJ's team that covered the financial scandal at Malaysian state fund 1MDB, and that won SOPA Excellence in Breaking News award for the coverage of the assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, in Malaysia in 2018. Yantoultra graduated with an MBA in Finance from Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) in 2010.

Singapore urges financial firms to use AI to create better jobs - The Economic Times

Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong is encouraging banks and financial companies to leverage artificial intelligence. The focus should be on creating better jobs and training workers for advanced roles. This approach aims to enhance competitiveness and benefit the workforce. Singapore is positioned as a leading AI financial hub.Singapore's banks and financial firms should use artificial intelligence to create better jobs and train workers for higher-value roles, not just cut costs, Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong said on Wednesday. Gan's comments come a day after Standard Chartered said it would cut more than 7,000 jobs over four ⁠years ⁠as it steps up AI adoption. HSBC CEO Georges Elhedery said on Wednesday that generative AI would "destroy certain jobs" and "create new jobs", while urging staff to embrace the change. "For Singapore, the answer cannot be to hold back change. If we slow AI adoption, we will weaken our competitiveness and ultimately hurt workers more, not less," Gan said ⁠at the DBS Leaders Dialogue event in Singapore. A DBS report released at the event ranked Singapore third among 15 AI financial ⁠hubs, behind New York and San Francisco, and said the city-state was the open-market hub closest to combining AI capability with institutional trust at scale. Gan said Singapore's next phase as a financial hub would depend on moving AI from experimentation into enterprise-wide adoption, ensuring it creates good jobs, and building trust, safety and security into the way AI is developed and used. "When firms implement AI, they should not only ask: how much cost can we save? They should also ask: What new roles can ⁠we create? How can existing workers be trained for them..." DBS Group CEO Tan Su Shan said Singapore's small size could become a strength if AI helped its limited workforce do more, describing the technology as a potential "great multiplier". "Small amplified by AI means our limited workforce can now do many more things than we could before," Tan said, adding that companies needed to take employees and customers along because "humans matter".

Singapore Wants Banks to Use AI to Create Jobs | PYMNTS.com

By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. Rather than simply using AI to cut jobs, these organizations should deploy the technology to create better jobs and train employees for better roles, according to Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong, Reuters reported Wednesday (May 20). "For Singapore, the answer cannot be to ⁠hold back change," ⁠Gan said at the DBS Leaders Dialogue event, per the report. "If we slow AI adoption, we will weaken our competitiveness and ultimately hurt workers more, not less." His comments came one day after Standard Chartered, a bank that counts Singapore as one of its main hubs, said it would cut around 8,000 jobs by the end of the decade as its AI usage increases. "It's not cost-cutting; it's replacing, in some cases, lower-value human capital with the financial capital and the investment capital we're putting in," CEO Bill Winters said in remarks he would later try to walk back following online outrage. As Bloomberg News reported, some of that outrage came from Singapore President Halimah Yacob, who blasted the CEO's terminology in a Facebook post, calling it "disturbing" to speak of workers in such clinical terms. Gan said Singapore's evolution as a financial hub would depend on safe and secure enterprise-wide adoption of AI, while making sure it creates good jobs, according to the Reuters report. "When firms implement AI, they should not only ask, 'How much cost can we save?'" he said, per the report. "They should also ask, 'What new roles can we create? How can existing workers be trained for them...'" DBS Group CEO Tan Su Shan said Singapore's small size could become an asset, with AI serving as a "great multiplier," according to the report. "Small amplified by AI means our limited workforce can now do many more things than we could before," Tan said, per the report, adding that companies must still take employees and customers into account because "humans matter." In other AI news, new research shows that the technology is becoming less visible as it grows more useful. "The closest analogue may not be the smartphone or social media boom, but the rise of mobile banking," PYMNTS reported Tuesday. It happened gradually, with people moving from checking online balances to deposits to peer-to-peer transfers. "Consumers today are not building trust in AI because they are mesmerized by the technology," the report said. "They are building trust because the technology increasingly removes friction from ordinary life."