The Asset, Hong Kong: Cognizant’s Head, Asia Pacific Says Digital Transformation in Private Banking Won’t Reduce Jobs

"Look at the number of the new skills that people have to acquire, and the number of digitally trained experts that we need,” says Jayajyoti Sengupta. “We are going to train millions of mid-level engineers and technologists. Not all of these experts are required by Cognizant – we are also training them for the investors because there is a severe shortage of such experts in the industry." Excerpts:

“The dual drivers of rapidly changing technology and customer needs are pushing financial institutions, including the private banks, to transform themselves in a digital era. This trend is particularly marked when it comes to the Asian market. In order to be more agile and competitive, private banks are using digital technologies, like advanced analytics and AI, to build modern IT infrastructures.

With its assets under management reaching US$403 billion as of end April 2018, Julius Baer, the Swiss private banking group, has recently implemented its digital transformation in business processes and core banking systems in its Asia Pacific region. This utilises the Temenos T24 core banking software platform and the Cognizant Banking and Financial Services Amplify solution provided by Cognizant, a US tech company.

Conducted in one roll rather than in phases, the digital transformation is the largest in the private banking space. Cognizant helps Julius Baer to more quickly expand its range of wealth management products and services while improving operational agility. The market fears that the digital transformation might affect the headcount of the banks with AI taking over manual works. However, Sengupta cannot agree with this. 'It will have a recalibration of jobs but will not cut jobs,' says Sengupta.

Although there are certain jobs displaced by automated technology, digitalisation at the same time is generating new jobs, not only in tech companies but also in the financial institutions.”

Click here to read more. Site registration is required.