Standard Chartered Bank Singapore announced this week that it is investing S$5 million (US$3.6 million) in upskilling its 10,000 Singapore-based employees over the next three years. It is also creating 350 traineeship and career opportunities for jobseekers this year, in line with the government's push for industries to open up roles and help mitigate unemployment.

In a statement released on June 23, the bank said it would be driving the upskilling by massively ramping up its existing SkillsFuture@SC program, which was launched in 2016 and has so far seen success in helping participating employees upgrade their professional skills. According to the statement, the bank will emphasize mid-career professionals who wish to move into new or enhanced job roles, and older professionals who are "willing to re-gear themselves to adapt to a new environment and learn new disciplines."

Patrick Lee, the CEO of StanChart Singapore, said: “The success of the Bank heavily depends on the resilience of our people. This is why we need to stay on the front foot of the changing environment and the needs of our clients, to ensure our employees stay relevant, competitive and future ready."

While the bank has not specified the areas where it plans to reskill and redeploy employees, it's a fair guess that much of the movement will be in the direction of technology and digital banking, especially with COVID-19 accelerating the adoption of the digitized model. StanChart has shared that it added 1,200 roles in future growth areas since 2018, in areas such as data solutions, analytics, cloud, and AI architecture, and the modules available on its internal learning platform have increasingly skewed towards similar technology-focused topics.