Singapore’s biggest bank DBS to cut 4,000 roles as it embraces AI

Singapore’s biggest bank says it expects to cut 4,000 roles over the next three years as artificial intelligence (AI) takes on more work currently done by humans.

“The reduction in workforce will come from natural attrition as temporary and contract roles roll off over the next few years,” a DBS spokesperson told the BBC.

Permanent staff are not expected to be affected by the cuts. The bank’s outgoing chief executive Piyush Gupta also said it expects to create around 1,000 new AI-related jobs.

It makes DBS one of the first major banks to offer details on how AI will affect its operations.

The company did not say how many jobs would be cut in Singapore or which roles would be affected.

DBS currently has between 8,000 and 9,000 temporary and contract workers. The bank employs a total of around 41,000 people.

Last year, Mr Gupta said DBS had been working on AI for over a decade.

“We today deploy over 800 AI models across 350 use cases, and expect the measured economic impact of these to exceed S$1bn ($745m; £592m) in 2025,” he added.

Mr Gupta is set to leave the firm at the end of March. Current deputy chief executive Tan Su Shan will replace him.

The ongoing proliferation of AI technology has put its benefits and risks under the spotlight, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) saying in 2024 that it is set to affect nearly 40% of all jobs worldwide.

The IMF’s managing director Kristalina Georgieva said that “in most scenarios, AI will likely worsen overall inequality”.

The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, told the BBC last year that AI will not be a “mass destroyer of jobs” and human workers will learn to work with new technologies.

Mr Bailey said that while there are risks with AI, “there is great potential with it”.