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DBS has also launched a Career Advisory Service to help employees navigate changes to their roles and career pathways as AI adoption grows.
DBS has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Institute of Banking and Finance Singapore (IBF) with the goal to strengthen AI skills and workforce capabilities across Singapore’s financial services sector.
Signed on 24 August 2026 (Monday), the agreement is the first of its kind between IBF and a financial institution. It will focus on three areas: uplifting foundational AI skills, upskilling employees whose roles are being reshaped by AI, and upbuilding the pipeline of young talent entering financial services.
Building foundational AI skills
Under the first area, DBS and IBF will develop IBF-recognised programmes covering areas such as AI governance, responsible AI, prompt engineering, and practical AI applications.
DBS will draw on its experience of equipping all 40,000 employees globally, including 14,800 in Singapore, with foundational AI skills.
The bank and IBF will also co-develop programmes aimed at building AI capabilities that are relevant to the wider financial services sector.
Reskilling employees as jobs change
The second area will focus on helping employees adapt to roles and ways of working that are being reshaped by AI.
DBS and IBF will jointly test and develop workforce interventions, drawing on IBF’s Job Redesign and Reskilling Career Conversion Programme and DBS’ experience in upskilling more than 11,000 employees in roles significantly reshaped by AI.
The initiative will support employees in developing the skills needed to move into redesigned jobs and take on new ways of working.
Strengthening the young talent pipeline
The third area will focus on developing young talent for Singapore’s financial sector.
This includes giving students applied exposure to AI in finance through initiatives such as IBF’s Young Talent Programme for AI in Finance, where DBS is a pioneer partner.
DBS has also committed to welcoming more than 500 local young talent in 2026 through its Management Associate, Internship, and Traineeship programmes.
The commitment follows DBS’ earlier announcement in May that it planned to bring in more than 500 local youths this year as AI continues to change the nature of work in banking.
DBS launches Career Advisory Service
Separately, DBS has launched a Career Advisory Service to help employees navigate changes to their roles and career pathways as AI adoption grows.
The service combines human career guidance with the bank’s AI-powered career development tools, including iGrow and iCoach. It is designed to help employees identify their strengths, explore career possibilities and translate their aspirations into career plans.
The service will initially have more than 100 Career Advisors from within the bank and will be available to employees across DBS’ six core markets.
Lee Yan Hong, Head of Group Human Resources, DBS, said the bank views AI as a way to augment employees’ capabilities by taking on repetitive and administrative work.
By reducing this “toil”, she said, employees can have more capacity to apply skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving and relationship building.
“At DBS, we use AI to create capacity to drive growth for the bank and for our people. Our ambition is to be an AI-enabled bank with a heart, keeping the human in the lead as work evolves,” Lee said.
She added that the bank’s approach is focused on supporting employees as jobs and tasks change.
"Jobs will change and tasks will evolve, but we are determined to bring everyone along our workforce transformation, from those starting their careers to experienced colleagues navigating their growth with us."
Carolyn Neo, Chief Executive Officer, IBF, said the partnership would support workers across different stages of their careers, from building essential AI skills to preparing for new or redesigned roles and strengthening the young talent pipeline.
She added that IBF would continue to test and co-develop workforce interventions with DBS, including through course recognition, structured training and on-the-job learning.
"Technology creates possibilities, but partnership turns them into opportunities for people. IBF looks forward to working with more financial institutions and partners to scale these benefits across the industry."
Lead image / DBS
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