Singapore (VNA) – Singapore’s OCBC Bank has launched a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) training programme for its 900 wealth advisors in Singapore, in a bid to improve sales performance and client engagements.
The six-month programme, which OCBC touted as a first of its kind for a bank in Singapore, uses large language models to simulate realistic customer scenarios. This allows advisors to hone their pitches and advisory skills on their work devices at their own pace, rather than waiting weeks for a supervisor’s availability.
Developed over 12 months, the programme uses the bank’s anonymised proprietary data on customer behaviour to generate dynamic, lifelike role play scenarios.
The AI responds naturally to the advisor, mimicking a real client looking to build a long-term investment portfolio, identify their risk profile, or adjust strategies amid market movements.
The system removes the emotional bias of human-led coaching while ensuring that all advisors are consistently trained to meet strict regulatory and professional standards.
Following each simulated session, supervisors will receive a GenAI gap-analysis report detailing the advisor’s competency levels and highlighting specific areas for improvement. This allows managers to deliver highly targeted, in-person coaching to close those skills gaps.
OCBC said the programme has already delivered promising results. Within the first three months of its implementation, wealth advisors who went through the training secured twice as many weekly client appointments as peers who had not yet used the programme. They also recorded a 50% uplift in revenue compared with the three months prior.
The bank plans to roll out the GenAI programme to its markets in Malaysia and Hong Kong (China) at a later stage. The training content, customer scenarios and learning pathways will be localised to reflect specific regulatory requirements, products and customer behaviours in those jurisdictions./.
