AI expansion means big changes for Singapore’s bigget bank
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
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Summary
From the BBC World Service: The biggest bank in Southeast Asia, DBS in Singapore, says it’ll cut 4,000 jobs over the next three years as AI takes on more work. Then, the European Union proposed a Ukrainina critical minerals partnership, which comes as President Trump is pushing Kyiv for a sweeping deal with the U.S. And in the U.K., farmers are urging a government re-think over plans for a new estates tax.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | AI expansion means big changes for Singapore's biggest bank. Hello, this is the Marketplace Morning Report and we're live from the BBC World Service. I'm Leanna Burr. Good morning. Now in recent years, there have been growing fears among some workers that artificial intelligence is coming for their jobs. Now the biggest bank in Southeast Asia, DBS, in Singapore, |
| 0:22.8 | says it'll cut 4,000 jobs over the next three years as AI takes on more work. The BBC's Katie |
| 0:29.1 | Silver is in Singapore and covering this one. Hello Katie. Hi, Leanna. So what do we know about this? |
| 0:35.3 | In DBS, it's replacing humans with AI technology. Do we know what kind of technology? Do we know what kind of roles? |
| 0:43.0 | We don't yet. I mean, I am a DBS user. I've been using the bank for years. And they have for years had AI bots, of course, that are, you know, answering your questions. |
| 0:52.8 | According to the bank, they say that they're |
| 0:54.5 | now using about 800 different AI models and that it's performing about 300 different functions |
| 1:00.4 | across the bank. Exactly what those are. The only one I have personally experienced is chatbots |
| 1:05.3 | and those sorts of things, but apparently they are rolling this out more widely. So 4,000 jobs |
| 1:10.6 | and the scale of that in the company, how significant is it? |
| 1:14.5 | It's about a 10th of its workforce, so they have about 41,000 employees. |
| 1:19.3 | Now, the bank has said that it's going to be primarily temporary or contract staff that are impacted, |
| 1:24.3 | so there won't be actually job cuts. |
| 1:26.2 | And it is over three-year period. But they've |
| 1:28.5 | also said that they're going to be adding about 1,000 new jobs related to the technology and related |
| 1:33.1 | to AI. So it does seem to be a kind of a structural change. Has there been any reaction from the workers |
| 1:38.5 | there? So far, no. And as I say, they're not necessarily going to be able to appeal it as such, |
| 1:43.8 | because they are contract workers. |
| 1:45.8 | But we are hearing from the likes, for example, the International Monetary Fund, |
| 1:49.4 | who's warned that AI will affect nearly 40% of all jobs. |
| 1:53.6 | And they have also said that it's going to increase inequality. |
| 1:56.8 | And we're already seeing that. |
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