Parvez Murshed

During the Brexit campaign of 2016, pro-Brexit politicians in the United Kingdom promoted the vision of a “Singapore on the Thames” by freeing the UK from the European Union.

I have worked for over a decade as a regional business head of a global bank based in Singapore. From my experience, if you walk the floors of any global bank’s regional offices in Hong Kong or Singapore, you will find many staff from India, a few from Australia, but hardly any from Bangladesh.

Banking is going through a rapid global transformation unlike anything seen before. Large international banks are shifting from retail banking to wealth management.

Recent news of corporate giants like Amazon and Nestle cutting thousands of jobs is part of a global trend where organisations are restructuring due to a challenging external environment. Each retrenchment directly affects the employee, their immediate family members and the people they support.

If you walk into a McDonald’s in Singapore or Hong Kong, you can place your order through digital touchscreens and make payments through the POS machines attached to them.

The global banking industry is undergoing transformative change. This shift, driven by technology and artificial intelligence (AI), is reshaping many long-established banking practices. Here are some of the key trends shaping the sector worldwide.

When Citibank Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jane Fraser decided to wind down the bank’s retail operations around the world, her main focus was to pivot towards wealth management. HSBC has taken a similar approach, and its recent closure of retail banking in Bangladesh and markets such as Indonesia reflects this shift.