Opening Remarks by the Institute of Banking and Finance CEO,  Mr Ng Nam Sin at The Institute of Banking and Finance Distinction Evening 2023

Mr Heng Swee Keat, Deputy Prime Minister

Mr Ravi Menon, MD MAS and Chairman of IBF

IBF Council Members

Distinguished Guests

Thank you for taking the time to join us this evening. My heartiest congratulations to all the award winners.

Our special thanks to DPM Heng Swee Keat. DPM was the Managing Director of MAS and Chairman IBF from 2005 to 2011. Many of our achievements today can be traced back to DPM’s time at MAS and IBF. We are very glad he can be here tonight to join in the celebration.

Growing your own timber - Reskilling

As per tradition, let me start the evening by sharing highlights of initiatives that IBF and our industry partners have worked on this year.

A major re-skilling initiative is our Career Conversion Programme (or CCP). CCP has been instrumental in helping many workers acquire new skills for new roles, ensuring that they remain relevant to the industry, and mitigating the risk of retrenchment.

Since 2017, more than 5,500 financial sector employees across 36 financial institutions (or FIs) have been reskilled. We believed this industry-wide scale in re-skilling is unprecedented, even by international standards.  We know this because a few countries have approached us to learn more about our CCP model.

To expand our technology talent pool, IBF launched the Technology in Finance Immersion Programme (or TFIP) in 2019. It is a bold initiative aimed at re-skilling mid-career candidates with no related technology experience but some STEM background for technology roles in areas including Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity, Data Analytics and Software Engineering.

The outcome is noteworthy. From 2019 to 2022 more than 1,000 trainees were enrolled in the programme. Their ages ranged from mid 20s to 50s. On average, more than 70% of trainees have been emplaced in related tech roles, with almost 55% of them in deep tech areas. To cite an example, we had a TFIP trainee who was working as a video editor. She was eventually emplaced as an application developer in her hosting financial institution.

We were keen to know the outcome for older workers. Older workers are often unfairly stereo-typed as harder to re-skill and more resistant to change. Our TFIP experience suggested otherwise. About 16% of our TFIP candidates were mature trainees (i.e. 40 years old and above). Of these, 57% were successfully emplaced. To cite a case, we had a mature trainee who used to perform function in the telecommunication industry. He is now an application developer in a financial institution.

The above clearly demonstrates the viability of re-skilling, even into very technical areas like technology, and relevant across all age groups. We hope this will encourage more organisations to adopt re-skilling in their talent management effort.

Expanding young talent pool 

Turning to the importance of creating pathways for young talent to join the financial services industry.  

The Finance Associate Management Scheme (or FAMS) supports FIs in building their leadership talent pool. FAMS has supported close to 60 FIs over the last 3 years to groom about 1,200 graduates through structured training, job rotations and mentorship.

Currently, polytechnic graduates formed only a small proportion of our financial sector workforce. To create more opportunities and pathways, MAS and IBF launched the Polytechnic Talent in Finance Scheme (PTFS) in April this year to encourage FIs to hire, train and nurture polytechnic students and graduates. The scheme includes internship, apprenticeship, and sponsorship for further studies. More than ten FIs have committed to participating in this scheme.

Recognising skills

The need to shift towards a skills-based approach for hiring, training and career development is indisputable. To succeed, this will require greater adoption of the Skills Framework by FIs and Skills Certification of professionals.  This will allow organisations to recognise and assess skills based on a common industry taxonomy. Working with the industry, IBF had targeted 5 segments namely Compliance, Risk Management, Financial Planning and Relationship Management and Private Banking to drive certifications. To date, about 90% of the professionals in these segments are now IBF Level 1 certified.

The next phase is to encourage attainment of higher-level certifications by senior professionals, i.e., Level 2 and 3. We understand one impediment for senior professionals is the need to undergo structured training. IBF will be reviewing the certification criteria for IBF Level 2 and 3 to recognise senior professionals’ workplace competencies as a complement to structured training.

Future Skills Accelerator

We launched the Future Skills Accelerator (FSA) at last year’s Distinction Evening.   To-date, we are pleased to report that 17 FIs have already been or are in the process of being onboarded. Powered by AI, FSA can help financial institutions in strategic workforce planning, skills acquisition, internal job mobility and talent acquisition. Several financial institutions have opened FSA to their staff, empowering them to chart their own career journey and skills development in their organisation. We are exploring new features, including Career Resiliency Index and Skills Inventory, which will equip individuals with the tools to assess their job readiness and skills needed to future-proof their careers. If adopted at scale, this will transform and facilitate self-directed career planning and learning.

Conclusion

I would like to conclude by sharing what Mr Chan Chun Sing, Minister for Education, said at an event last month. He was asked this question: “What are the most important skills to acquire for the near future?”. His answer: “Learn how to learn and to continuously learn”.  Skills in demand will keep changing, and each time at a faster pace. We need to continuously learn, un-learn and relearn. This mindset underpins the mission and mandate of IBF.

Many of our initiatives were co-created with our industry partners, many present here today, who have generously contributed your time and resources, provided valuable guidance and ideas, and commitment of support. It is thus appropriate that I take this opportunity to again thank all our industry partners. IBF looks forward to more good years of fruitful collaborations.

Thank you.