Singapore's financial sector should adopt artificial intelligence with a focus on generating higher-value employment and equipping workers for new roles, Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong said on Wednesday.
Speaking at the DBS Leaders Dialogue event in Singapore, Gan cautioned against deploying AI simply to trim headcount. His remarks come shortly after Standard Chartered announced plans to reduce its workforce by more than 7,000 jobs over four years as it accelerates the use of AI, and after HSBC's chief executive warned that generative AI will both "destroy certain jobs" and "create new jobs." Georges Elhedery urged 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, stressing the need to balance innovation with worker outcomes.
A DBS report released at the same event placed Singapore third among 15 AI financial hubs, behind New York and San Francisco. The report highlighted Singapore as the open-market hub most likely to combine AI capability with institutional trust at scale.
Gan outlined three priorities for Singapore's next stage as a financial centre: move AI from experimentation to enterprise-wide adoption; ensure AI use creates good jobs; and build trust, safety and security into AI development and deployment. He urged firms to ask not only how much cost can be saved when implementing AI, but also what new roles can be created and how existing staff can be retrained for them.
DBS Group CEO Tan Su Shan said Singapore's relatively small workforce could be a strength if AI acts as a multiplier, helping employees do more. "Small amplified by AI means our limited workforce can now do many more things than we could before," she said, adding that companies must bring employees and customers along because "humans matter."
The comments at the forum tied government direction, industry strategy and corporate leadership, as financial firms weigh productivity gains from AI against workforce impacts and the need to maintain public trust.
Context preserved from the event: Gan's remarks, Standard Chartered's announced job reductions over four years linked to AI adoption, HSBC CEO Georges Elhedery's comments on generative AI's dual impact on jobs, DBS's ranking placing Singapore third among 15 AI financial hubs, and Tan Su Shan's "great multiplier" description of AI are all part of the public discussion at the DBS Leaders Dialogue.