RANKINGS: SINGAPORE BANKS
Singapore bank rankings reveal new hires increased by 5.8% in 2022
The banks’ rankings saw some slight shuffle as some banks reported lower numbers.
workforce within HSBC. They come up with initiatives to support a genderequal environment,” Brandon said. He also said that banks should share best practices with each other. “This is not a commercially sensitive topic and is something that the whole industry should be focused on improving.” Dean Tong, head of Group Human Resources at UOB, said at the end of 2021 women comprised 55.6% of the newly hired employees across the group. In Singapore, its workforce comprised 61.5% of women, with 36.3% in senior roles.
By 2030, women in senior leadership will grow to 20.5%
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ingapore banks continue to bolster their rosters in terms of new hires in 2022, registering a 5.8% increase in Asian Banking & Finance’s annual bank rankings compared to a year before. The rankings, which rates banks in terms of the number of employees, saw some moderate to great increases in the number of hires this year whilst some banks opted to keep employee numbers the same. Meanwhile, a number of banks saw slight dips in employee numbers causing them to slip from their previous place. DBS continues to hold the top spot with 12,585 employees, an increase of 4.9% from 2021. Standard Chartered and UOB maintained the number of employees at 10,000 and 9,000, placing third and fourth respectively. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC) had a slight dip in its employee count from 3,300 to 3,242 ranking sixth. CIMB bank had a notable dip of 25.2% in its number of employees from 1,237 in 2021 to 925 this year, falling from ninth to 11th place. During interviews conducted for its annual bank rankings, Asian Banking & Finance found that top Singaporean 28 ASIAN BANKING & FINANCE | Q3 2022
This is not a commercially sensitive topic and is something that the whole industry should be focused on improving
banks are exceeding the projected regional average growth of hiring women in executive positions. Deloitte’s Within Reach series predicted that by 2030, women in senior leadership, specifically C-suite, will grow to 20.5%, a moderate increase from 18.5% in 2021. In DBS’ 2021 sustainability report, 54.3% of their Singapore staff are women. In all of its branches, DBS’ female staff comprises around 49.2% of its workforce. Brandon Coate, Head of Human Resources at HSBC Singapore revealed that the bank has one woman in a senior position for every 14 women employed in an entry to midlevel position. According to Brandon, gender diversity forms a key part of ensuring an inclusive, dynamic, and open culture in the workplace. “What we’ve done at HSBC Singapore is to introduce a more flexible and hybrid way of working as part of our Future of Work approach. We also have Employee Resource Groups (ERG) that advocate various causes the bank supports. Our ERG champions the recruitment, development, advancement, and engagement of a gender-balanced
Closing the gender gap Dean believes that men and women bring different ideas, perspectives, and skill sets to the table. This setup drives innovative thinking and effective problem-solving for the organisation. To foster a diverse and in clusive workforce, it is imperative that organisations focus on building a workplace that values every individual and motivates them. According to Dean, this starts through their holistic talent recruitment and performance framework that measures and rewards all UOB employees based on their competencies and adherence to the company’s values. “Through our leadership acceleration programme, we prepare our high-performing colleagues to take on executive roles in UOB by providing them with intensive learning experiences through crosscountry assignments, leadership coaching, and executive education. Many of our colleagues across both genders who participated in these programmes have gone on to become leaders at the bank and in their fields,” Dean explained. Standard Chartered is also one of Singapore’s top banks that exceeded Deloitte’s forecast. In 2021, 48% of Standard Chartered’s overall hires were women, with 37% in senior roles. In the first half of 2022, 42% of overall hired employees were women, 37% in senior positions.
