Singapore's DBS is to invest SG$20 million over five years on a new 'digital curriculum' to educate its 10,000 Singapore employees on disruptive trends and emerging technologies that are reshaping financial services.
DBS, which likes to bill itself as a global 20,000 person startup, has been working hard at breeding an innovative culture at the bank, partnering staff with fintech startups in corporate hackathons and running agile development workshops in a 40,000 square foot 'learning centre', packed with new technological tools and training facilities.
Furthering its ambitions, the bank has launched a new cloud-based e-learning platform called DBS Horizon. Using technology from Saba, the system uses artificial intelligence to make personalised course recommendations, and help employees collaborate and create communities of interest around a particular topic.
The bank is also giving employees the opportunity to go on paid sabbaticals to work on prototypes, start their own businesses and undertake shcolarships to further their skills in emerging technologies such as data and analytics, design thinking, and automation.
Lee Yan Hong, group head of human resources, DBS Bank says: “As the financial sector evolves, the profile of jobs will change and we are committed to helping our people adapt and embrace digital transformation through innovative and immersive continuous learning programmes. We are making significant investments to groom a generation of digital bankers, strengthening Singapore’s talent pool.”
Re-training the workforce has become a priority issue for the HR teams at incumbent banks the world over. Earlier this month, Australia's Westpac revealed that it has created an inhouse IT University to provide staff across the bank with 2500 modules and primers on new developments in computing and agile delivery.