Mr Gan Kim Yong, Minister for Trade and Industry, 

Mr Ravi Menon, MD of MAS and Chairman of IBF

Members of the IBF Council, Distinguished Guests.

1. Good evening! A very warm welcome to IBF Distinction Evening 2022 – our first full-scale Distinction Evening since 2019.

2. Our sincere thanks to Minister Gan Kim Yong for taking the time to be with us this evening.

3. I offer my heartfelt  congratulations to all the award winners. Your exemplary contributions have uplifted the industry especially amid the challenging conditions caused by the pandemic.

4. Though we remain vigilant, we can safely say that the worst of Covid-19 is behind us. Over the last two years, there were also many silver linings. IBF, together with our industry partners, had forged ahead with many bold initiatives. 

5. We were fortunate to be able to achieve this, on three counts. Firstly, the financial sector had continued to perform well over the past two years, giving us more time and space to adjust and respond with our plans. 

6.      Secondly, it is worth noting that our jobs and skills initiatives were not triggered by the pandemic.  We had started the drive much earlier. This has provided us a ready platform to scale up our efforts. Thirdly, and perhaps most significant, is IBF’s strong partnership with our industry players. We were better able to organise ourselves and respond to changes quickly. Let me share some noteworthy achievements:

Growing Mid-Career Talent Pool 

7. Most of you are familiar with the Career Conversion Programme (CCP). It seeks to reskill and redeploy job roles impacted by technology and business transformation, thereby minimizing job displacements. Many financial institutions (FIs) have pressed on with their CCP efforts despite having to deal with the impact of the pandemic. To date, more than 4,400 inpiduals in consumer banking, operations and insurance roles have been trained or are undergoing training and more than 2,100 from this group have successfully taken on new job roles. 

8. The Technology in Finance Immersion Programme (TFIP), a variation of the CCP, is a good example of seeking opportunities in adversity. TFIP is aimed at enlarging our technology talent pipeline. The outcome has been promising and we thank all the participating financial institutions for their strong support.

9. The SGUnited Traineeship Programme and the SGUnited Mid-Career Pathways Programme provide traineeship and attachment opportunities to fresh graduates and mid-career inpiduals to gain industry-related skills. Since the start of the pandemic, over 240 financial institutions offered more than 1,800 fresh graduates and 800 mid-career professionals with traineeship and attachment positions.  Workforce Singapore (WSG) is pleased to recognise 8 of them here tonight. They have demonstrated strong support by onboarding the highest number of trainees.

Grooming Talents 

10. One of the key strategies on our Industry Transformation Map (ITM) 2025 announced by DPM Lawrence Wong is in our relentless pursuit to upskill our workforce. We will facilitate training support for Singaporeans at different stages of their careers, develop specialist talent in areas such as sustainability and technology, as well as those in leadership roles. We have made notable progress in a few areas:

a. The Finance Associate Management Scheme (FAMS) supports young Singaporeans to be groomed for future specialist leadership or management roles in financial institutions. The scheme was enhanced last year to include Sustainability and Technology roles.  More than 1,000 graduates have been hired under this scheme since 2018. 

b. The Work-Study Support Programme (WSSP) aims to build Singaporean graduates’ job-readiness through structured internships at financial institutions. The Private Banking Industry Group (PBIG) in Singapore has taken the lead under this programme, to attract and groom local talent for roles such as Client Advisors and Business Analyst. About 140 students have been trained at various financial institutions over the last 2 years. 

c.  Next, on raising competencies, industry-wide training participations saw record growth from just over 45,000 in 2019, to more than 160,000 in 2021. Beyond technical skills training, future-enabled skills training continued to be an area of interest.

Developing new skills map for growing sectors

d. IBF and MAS launched the Sustainable Finance Technical Skills and Competencies (SF TSCs) in February 2022. It covers a range of thematic and functional skills for financial services professionals employed in sustainable finance roles. To-date, IBF has recognised close to 50 sustainable finance / ESG related courses which have trained about 500 professionals.

Leveraging technology and experience to facilitate upskilling and reskilling

11. The Future Skills Accelerator (FSA) will be launched today. You will hear more about it this evening. This industry-wide project is possible only with the close support of 15 financial institutions, as well as our partners, MAS,  Jobtech and PwC. They have journeyed tire-lessly with us over the past two years. 

12. Another way to facilitate workforce transformation is through formalising shared experiences. A common feedback we have received concerns our smaller financial institutions. How can they better position themselves in developing and competing for talents? 

13. Tonight, on behalf of the Institute for Human Resource Professionals (IHRP), I am delighted to launch the IHRP’s Playbook for Financial Services. It is designed to help small and medium-sized financial institutions in tackling workforce planning and bridging skills gaps. It contains a curated set of practical HR resources, tools, templates and case studies from 12 local Financial Institutions who are featured in the playbook. We thank IHRP for this important contribution.

Looking ahead

14. By now, the need to continuously upskill and reskill our workforce is well recognised. This will ensure our workforce keep pace with changing industry needs. To achieve this, we not only have to be pro-active in our workforce planning, but pre-emptive in mitigating any impacts. We need to anticipate changes early, like what we have done to assess the wider impact of technology on jobs, and now doing the same with sustainable finance. We believe that IBF and MAS’s unique partnership with all stakeholders, including the financial institutions, the unions and industry associations will help us achieve this objective.

15. On this note, let me congratulate our award winners once again. We look forward to your further contribution. 

16.  Thank you.