---
title: "Singapore banks face 90% onboarding bottleneck despite AI push"
type: "News"
locale: "en"
url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/280531242.md"
description: "Singapore's corporate and investment banks are focusing on building internal AI capabilities, with 90% citing client onboarding as inefficient. While 40% are investing in AI upskilling, only 20% are hiring external talent, below the global average. Key operational bottlenecks persist, particularly in KYC and transaction reconciliation. Despite rising competitive pressure, 85% of corporate clients plan to engage non-bank institutions, and only 23% feel banks meet service expectations. Globally, banks struggle to convert innovation spending into results, with a significant portion of IT budgets still allocated to legacy systems."
datetime: "2026-03-25T21:30:53.000Z"
locales:
  - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/280531242.md)
  - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/280531242.md)
  - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/280531242.md)
---

# Singapore banks face 90% onboarding bottleneck despite AI push

**Banks invest in skills, not hiring.**

Singapore’s corporate and investment banks are investing more heavily in internal artificial intelligence capability-building, but 90% still cite client onboarding as inefficient, according to Capgemini.

The firm said Singapore banks are shifting from hiring to building, with 40% investing in hands-on AI upskilling and 30% offering incentives to drive adoption, compared with 23% and 14% globally. Only 20% of companies are recruiting external AI talent, compared to a 40% global average.

Operational bottlenecks remain more severe than global norms in several key workflows. The firm said 80% of Singapore respondents flagged KYC and due diligence as inefficient, compared with 75% globally, whilst another 80% pointed to transaction reconciliation, compared with 63% worldwide.

Compliance was a relatively smaller concern in Singapore. Half of respondents cited regulatory and compliance monitoring as inefficient, close to the 48% global level and below Hong Kong’s 60% and Japan’s 80%.

The Singapore findings come as Capgemini’s global corporate and investment banking report showed rising competitive pressure across the sector.

It said 85% of banks’ corporate clients plan to engage a non-bank financial institution within the next 12 months, whilst only 23% said banks currently meet expectations for faster, more transparent, and responsive service.

Globally, Capgemini said banks are still struggling to convert innovation spending into results, with 82% of executives saying innovation programmes are not generating improved revenue from new products and 51% saying they have not delivered expected cost savings.

It added that only 29% of IT budgets are directed to transformative technologies, whilst 43% is still spent maintaining legacy systems.

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