Singapore’s banks and financial companies need to use artificial intelligence to create better jobs and train workers for higher-value roles, rather than just cutting costs, Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong officially announced on Wednesday.
The recent announcement comes as Standard Chartered issued a major update to cut more than 7,000 jobs over the next four years as it increasingly uses artificial intelligence.
One of the major global banks plans to cut its workforce, highlighting AI as a driver to streamline its operations as it looks to expand its profitability and remain competitive. In this regard, Gan said: “If we slow down AI adoption, we will weaken our competitiveness and ultimately harm workers more, not less.”
According to the DBS report released at the event, Singapore ranked third among 15 AI financial centers after New York and San Francisco.
It is pertinent to note that the city-state was the digital platform to combine AU capacity with institutional trade on a large scale.
Gan further explained that Singapore’s next phase as a financial hub will depend on taking AI from experimentation to company-wide implementation, ensuring it creates jobs and builds trust, and enhancing safety and security in the way AI is developed and used.
“Smaller scale, amplified by AI, means our limited workforce can now do many more tasks than before,” Tan said, adding that companies need to engage employees and customers because “humans matter.”
