OCBC announces mass hiring of 1,500 tech workers with majority of roles to be based in S’pore

OCBC announced on Friday (Mar 25) plans to accelerate its digital transformation by hiring about 1,500 technology staff over the next three years.

The company expects this initiative to create greater value for customers and elevate their user experience.

According to a statement by Lim Khiang Tong, Group Chief Operating Officer at OCBC Bank, the new roles include application developers, cyber security experts, blockchain specialists, and data scientists, among others.

The majority of these positions will be based in Singapore, with the rest in its overseas entities in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia.

This update comes amid the backdrop of a global shortage of tech talents, and the banking group, which operates across East and Southeast Asia, is aggressively hiring as competition for tech talent heats up.

Existing staff retrained with digital skills

Some of the bank’s employees are also being retrained and redeployed, and the bank has been increasing its spending on training and development for staff in tech functions over the last five years.

Lim told Vulcan Post that the bank launched the OCBC Future Smart Programme in 2018 to train and develop the digital skills of their employees, with an investment of S$20 million, the largest scale and most ambitious digital transformation initiative by a Singapore bank.

These programmes include the Data Certification Pathway, accredited by the Institute of Banking and Finance, and provided in depth training for employees in data analytics. Another programme is the Cyber Certification Pathway which provides cybersecurity training. More than 200 staff have completed both pathways since.

OCBC is also using a new e-learning platform to keep their tech employees updated with new skills in software development, cloud computing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI). According to the bank, these help expose employees to areas outside of what they had originally been hired for, and have proven successful in staff retention.

OCBC added that it remains committed to contributing to Singapore’s talent pipeline, having welcomed 20 third-year students from Ngee Ann Polytechnic for a one year internship, and launching a postgraduate AI scholarship three years back.

Featured Image Credit: CapitaLand