Know who an ethnographer is? Banks are hiring them along with philosophers

Why are banks hiring photographers, philosophers, engineers, and designers? Global bank DBS reskilled 2300 people and shifted them into different jobs and hired people with unique skills. Understand, what are the new job opportunities in the banking world and how globally banks are transforming the hiring strategy.

The good news is that banks are hiring. And, it gets better. They are not hiring bankers and number crunchers but also engineers. It’s no surprise as the technology section of a bank is as large as the financial part.

“I generally believe that we are a tech company offering financial services. We have more engineers than bankers. We have large engineering centres that include everything from coding, design, data, AI, machine learning, etc. A large part of hiring goes into that space,” said Piyush Gupta, CEO, DBS Bank Singapore while speaking at a webinar hosted by Singapore FinTech Festival.

Philosophers in banking
That’s not all. It gets better. Banks are also hiring historians, anthropologists and design psychologists, engineers and lesser-known professionals like ethnographers -- those who study the science behind cultures. Banks are also hiring philosophers and that’s not just to comfort them as their non-performing assets pile up.

But, why this sudden change? As banks are breaking their brick and mortar walls, they’re depending on data to assess a large section of consumers, quickly. The expansion of skill sets is one way to make them ‘understand’ the softer side of banking. And, do not be surprised, this side exists.

“We are thinking hard about the use of data. To make them usage, data should be explainable. These people understand the philosophy. So we have a framework to read data. The need for soft skills is growing, in order to understand consumer behaviour to gain insights in digital marketing,” said Gupta.

To think is to lend
As of now, banks like many other tech companies have large piles of data about what people eat, what they like to eat, what they search, how much they search, what they watch etc. This information is available based on social media and boundless amount of digital data, which is now available.

However, to ‘read’ people’s ability to earn, spend and pay based on what they do is not just the job that techies can do. It needs people to ‘think’ and create models and formulas based on the data. That’s how thinkers are entering the space of banking, and it looks like it will never be the same again.

Future of banking jobs
Most of the banks are reducing staff which is outdated in the digital world.

“In the short term I am not retrenching anybody but in the long term, you will find jobs disappearing. And those jobs are mostly operational. The front end, tellers, and call centre jobs are going to change,” explained Gupta

Bankers are focusing on automation because half the jobs in banking can be automated. With the emergence of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), National Language Processing (NLP) many large parts of the jobs in banking are expected to be eliminated.

Reskilling the existing is the only way
Banks are trying hard to reskill their existing employees but cultural change, age are the major challenges.

“In 2016 we identified 2300 jobs that will become outdated and reskilled all of them, including tellers. We could place them into different roles. But learning at old age can be only be doing,” ascertains Gupta

DBS bank has been running a hackathons programme since the last 3-4 years for its employees to learn new skills. The idea is to create a culture for ‘learning and doing’

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