Banks' plans to retrain their front-line staff are gathering pace, with OCBC being the latest to set fresh targets in reskilling more than 300 bank tellers here.
OCBC said yesterday it would cut half of its bank teller jobs in two years, with fewer customers now going to bank branches and more doing transactions online. In the past five years, OCBC's bank teller headcount has fallen by 15 per cent.
But no one will be retrenched as all the tellers at the 51 branches of Singapore's second-largest bank will be retrained over five years to take on digital or advisory roles.
OCBC noted that the branch network would remain "largely unchanged", even while it has set aside $14 million to develop new automated teller machines (ATMs) and digital service kiosks that function as "mini branches".
"Even as OCBC transforms its branch operations to focus on more digital and advisory services, no tellers employed today will lose their jobs as a result and the existing network of bank branches will remain largely unchanged," the bank said.
OCBC said tellers would move into roles that allow them to take on "higher value-added" tasks that require decision-making or physical verification. The shift takes them away from repetitive counter tasks like processing cash transactions, which currently make up close to 90 per cent of transactions performed at branch teller counters.
Over the past two years, OCBC has developed new ATMs and digital kiosks that allow customers to perform 15 of the most frequent bank counter services such as cash deposits and larger withdrawals, simultaneous cash and coin deposits, as well as an update of customers' details. It will install these machines at 35 branches by 2020.
Since the launch of the new ATMs and digital service kiosks at eight OCBC branches in May this year, the branches have moved close to 10 per cent of branch over-the-counter transactions to these machines. More than 35,000 transactions have been made on them.
The new ATMs and digital service kiosks make use of new digital technologies such as facial and fingerprint scanners for biometric authentication and signature pads, which can be activated for use in the future.
By next year, the ATMs will be able to facilitate instant cheque encashment, so customers can scan their cash cheques to receive the funds immediately.
The new ATMs will also be able to dispense up to $200,000 in cash in one transaction, in the customer's preferred note denominations.
Some bank tellers will become branch "digital ambassadors", helping to guide customers in using the new machines.
DBS was the first bank to announce plans to reskill 1,500 employees under its Professional Conversion Programme (PCP) last October. Employees to be retrained are not just from the branches but also those in back-end operations in consumer banking and institutional banking, as well as client-facing employees in branches, a spokesman said.
A UOB spokesman said the bank has been retraining tellers. Within the next two years, all UOB bank tellers will be equipped with "the relevant skillsets to take on broader roles at the branches", said the spokesman.
