OCBC is rolling out a generative AI ( Gen AI )-powered skills training programme for its 900-strong wealth advisory force in Singapore.

Supporting the banking group’s “whole-of-wealth” proposition, the six-month programme deploys Gen AI to coach wealth advisers on a full range of competencies, including investment advisory, client management, product mastery, and wealth planning.

A first-of-its-kind by a bank in Singapore, the new programme was developed over a year using large language models guided by OCBC’s anonymized proprietary insights on customer behaviours to generate realistic training situations.

These scenarios include helping a customer to create an investment portfolio to address their long-term needs, identifying a customer’s risk profile, selling more sophisticated financial products, and adjusting investment strategies in line with market movements.

The programme, available to wealth advisers on their work devices, dynamically adapts its responses based on what is said, engaging naturally as a customer would in a real-life setting.

Previous wealth advisory skills training was conducted solely in person, on a one-on-one basis, and depended on a supervisor’s availability.

According to OCBC, the use of Gen AI removes bias and emotions that can influence supervisor-led coaching. This ensures all wealth advisers are trained in responsible advisory and regulatory conduct consistently and at a high professional standard, at scale.

Up until now, wealth advisers could wait up to three weeks to secure a training session with their supervisors, who typically coached up to 10 staff members per session and had other responsibilities, resulting in inconsistent evaluation standards and feedback quality across supervisors.

Following each session, supervisors receive a Gen AI-generated gap-analysis report that details the wealth adviser’s level of competency and highlights specific areas for improvement.

Hong Kong and Malaysia

The programme has delivered positive results since its implementation. Within the first three months of training, wealth advisers demonstrated a high level of customer engagement, securing double the number of weekly client appointments compared with peers who had not yet undergone the training sessions.

They also recorded a 50% uplift in revenue compared with the previous three months. The wealth advisers backed the realism of the scenarios and the consistent, best practice-aligned evaluation and feedback framework of the programme as key contributors to their performance improvement.

“We now have a powerful programme for our wealth advisers to help them quickly grasp the skills relevant to build confidence and a strong grasp of product knowledge and financial industry regulations,” says Sunny Quek, head of global consumer financial services at OCBC.

“By marrying AI precision with the human touch, we ensure our advisers are not just well-trained, but future-ready for customers’ growing sophistication in their wealth management needs. We are enabling consistent, high-quality engagement across all our customer segments, while embedding AI into our core processes, including employee development.”

OCBC’s wealth advisers serve three segments of retail banking customers: personal banking ( assets under management of under S$350,000 ), OCBC Premier Banking ( AUM of S$350,000 to S$1.5 million ), and OCBC Private Premier Client ( AUM of at least S$1.5 million ).

The programme will be rolled out in Malaysia and Hong Kong at a later stage, with training content localized to the specific needs of wealth advisers in each market. Customer scenarios, assessments and learning pathways will be customized to reflect local products, regulatory requirements and customer behaviours.