HSBC is launching a Global AI Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Singapore in the second half of 2026, with plans to hire more than 100 AI specialists and 100 wealth relationship managers as it deepens its Asian footprint.
The CoE will sit under David Rice, HSBC's Chief AI Officer, and will bring together teams working on wealth management, global payments and treasury. The bank said innovations built in Singapore are intended to be scaled across its worldwide operations.
In terms of immediate priorities, the centre will focus on personalising customer wealth management conversations, building agentic treasury solutions for corporate clients, and expanding AI-enabled digital payments.
To staff the hub, HSBC said it will recruit across natural language processing, data science, AI governance and human-centred design. The bank also plans to work with Singapore's universities and government bodies to develop a local talent pipeline.
Separately, the 100 additional relationship managers will be added to HSBC's premier and private banking units to meet rising demand from affluent clients across Asia.
The expansion comes as HSBC's group CEO Georges Elhedery has said publicly that AI will both destroy and create jobs in financial services, and that the bank intends to retrain its workforce rather than cut it. HSBC currently employs over 3,600 people in Singapore.
The announcement follows HSBC's agreement last week to sell its Singapore life and health insurance business to Allianz for S$2.7 billion, as the bank trims non-core operations to concentrate on wealth and wholesale banking.
