Singapore lenders beat Hong Kong peers with higher proportion of tech job postings: poll

SINGAPORE banks are hiring a larger proportion of technology specialists than their Hong Kong counterparts in 2018. Some 20 per cent of Singapore bank job postings are technology-related, compared to 5 per cent for Hong Kong lenders, according to a census by labour market intelligence startup JobTech.

Comparing banks with a large presence in both financial hubs, Singapore lenders also post more technology jobs than Hong Kong banks. For instance, JP Morgan posted 640 technology jobs in Singapore and 170 in Hong Kong, while DBS posted 630 in the Republic versus 50 in Hong Kong.

JobTech said that this could mean the banks are basing most of their digitisation efforts in Singapore.

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 census 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 cybersecurity'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.