First industry-run career centre for finance professionals opens

SINGAPORE – Finance professionals and those keen to join the sector can head to a dedicated industry-run career centre for advice, job matching and skills upgrading.

Touted as a "one-stop" centre by the authorities, it will provide individuals with career advisers who can offer information on hiring trends, the skills required for specific jobs, as well as relevant training programmes for workers.

Run by the Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF) – an industry association for financial institutions – the centre, called IBF Careers Connect, can also link individuals up with other industry professionals through networking events.

This is on top of IBF's existing role of setting competency standards and administering licensing examinations for the financial sector.

Speaking at its opening on Wednesday (August 1), Education Minister and board member of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Mr Ong Ye Kung said that technology is changing job roles in every industry, including the financial sector.

"Innovation has become the new expectation, and I believe we are only at the beginning of this transformation, probably just phase one," he added.

Besides providing career support for individuals, IBF will also be working with financial institutions such as banks, insurers, securities brokerages and asset management firms, including those that are non-members, to design its professional conversion programmes (PCPs).

PCPs will be critical for workers whose roles are fast becoming redundant, noted Mr Ong. "We want to be able to intervene early and facilitate professional conversion," he added.

In a media briefing on Monday (July 30), IBF's chief executive Ng Nam Sim said jobs that are more routine and repetitive, such as front-line bank tellers, would be the first to be redundant.

Last month, OCBC Bank announced it would be cutting its bank teller jobs by half within the next two years, with affected staff to be reassigned other digital or advisory roles such as digital ambassadors and service executives.

According to a report by assurance, advisory and tax services firm PwC in February, financial services would be "most impacted" by technological disruptions, more than other sectors such as transport and health, said Mr Ng.

Transforming the financial industry workforce is essential to ensure "good growth comes with good jobs", said MAS managing director Ravi Menon at the opening ceremony. While 7,800 new jobs were created in the financial and fin-tech sectors in the last two years, there were a lot of finance professionals moving into and out of jobs as roles change, he said.

"The gross flows are huge, there is a lot of churn," he added.

IBF Careers Connect – located in MAS Building on Shenton Way – will continue efforts by the labour movement to help finance workers. The National Trades Union Congress' (NTUC) Financial Industry Career Advisory Centre (Ficac), set up in April 2016, will cease to exist as its functions will be subsumed under IBF Careers Connect.

Mr Ong said that the financial services tripartite committee (FSTC) jointly set up by MAS and NTUC decided to "upgrade" Ficac into a "full-blown" centre when its role grew in importance.

NTUC assistant secretary-general Patrick Tay said Ficac has managed to help more than 370 workers find jobs through career fairs and referrals since its launch. It has also reached out to more than 3,100 individuals through its workshops, networking sessions as well as engagement programmes with financial institutions.

Mr Tay said the new centre will be able to reach out to more finance professionals as IBF has more dedicated resources, given that it has already been providing training and certification for workers in the sector.

IBF, which has nearly 200 members, was not able to provide an estimate on the number of finance workers they aim to help in a year.

Several bank staff told TODAY that their job roles have expanded and become less repetitive after training provided by their employers.

Starting as a bank teller at POSB 24 years ago, Ms Tricia Lee, 43, said her role used to be very specific – helping customers open bank accounts, for instance.

Not having to "hide behind the counter" anymore, she now performs various duties at work, including teaching customers how to access the bank's digital platforms.

DBS deputy service manager Jessica Lim, 53, said that with more paperwork being digitised, the time needed to go through several reports and documents after a bank branch closes for the day has been cut.