SINGAPORE - Singapore lenders hired a larger proportion of technology specialists than their Hong Kong counterparts last year, according to a report by labour market intelligence start-up JobTech.

While the top hiring banks in Hong Kong generally advertise more positions than their counterparts in Singapore, about 20 per cent of Singapore bank job postings in 2018 were technology-related, compared to 5 per cent for Hong Kong lenders, according to the report.

Banks with a large presence in both cities also posted a larger number of technology jobs in Singapore than in Hong Kong. For instance, J P Morgan posted 640 technology jobs in Singapore and 170 in Hong Kong and DBS posted 630 technology jobs in Singapore and only 50 in Hong Kong.

Given that these banks have a significant presence in Hong Kong, it could suggest that they are basing most of their digitisation efforts in Singapore, said JobTech.

It noted that - in line with banks' digital transformation initiatives and their push for analytics business intelligence - data analytics and application engineering were the most sought-after technology domains among Singapore and Hong Kong's top hiring banks last year.

The survey also found a stronger focus on information security positions in Singapore lenders versus Hong Kong's, which JobTech sees as further indication of Singapore's digitising efforts, given cyber security's critical role in digitisation.

Overall, Singapore banks are looking to hire for a wider variety of domain expertise, which JobTech said is often necessary for digitising a sector.