OCBC Bank has long been known for its philosophy of giving back to the community. Be it through philanthropic efforts in less-advantaged communities, pushing for sustainable practices in its business operations or fine-tuning customer services for ease of use, the bank consistently displays its dedication to making a meaningful impact beyond finance.

Of particular interest to the younger generation are the coveted OCBC Scholarships. Launched in 2019, the OCBC Regional Scholarship provides financial assistance to students bearing citizenship from Singapore, Malaysia, China, Indonesia or Hong Kong, who are currently studying in selected universities in these countries. To date, over 350 OCBC Scholars have been awarded this opportunity and have soared to greater heights with OCBC.

Beyond the se regular scholarship offerings, OCBC has also acknowledged the increased importance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology in banking. Not content to be the first local bank to launch its own AI unit in 2018 to cultivate in-house AI capabilities, it expanded to cultivate new talent with the OCBC Postgraduate AI Scholarship. This specialised study and career path are tailored for budding data scientists, covering all tuition costs and promising a guaranteed placement in OCBC AI Lab upon graduation.

OCBC Scholars Jhuan Christian and Chua Mei Yun studied under the Regional Scholarship and Postgraduate AI Scholarship respectively. Today, they are fully immersed in the ever-evolving world of banking in their respective roles. Unsurprisingly, both have a technological bent – Jhuan creates data dashboards that enable them to identify new insights as a Technical Business Analyst while Mei Yun is an Assistant Manager at the Group Data Office, AI Lab, where she and her team identify suspicious transaction behaviour, such as money laundering, through AI Solutions.

With OCBC, they expressed full confidence that this is the place where they can serve the community and push the boundaries of technological development within the dynamic world of finance.

AI: The Future of Banking

As Mei Yun’s personal studies in Machine Learning and AI had hit a glass ceiling, she decided to go back to school to acquire more knowledge - and the OCBC AI Postgraduate Scholarship was her opportunity.

“OCBC is offering a scholarship specific to the field of studies that I am applying for. Not only does the scholarship cover the entire costs of my Master’s degree, it also provides lump-sum allowances and also an opportunity to work at OCBC’s very own in-house AI lab as a data scientist,” she recalled happily.

“With all the benefits that the scholarship offered, I jumped at the opportunity straight away!”

OCBC recognised her potential, and supported her Masters in Computing AI at NUS, where she gained the in-depth knowledge she had been looking for. “I am now able to grasp the complex math and systems behind the AI models,” she informed us proudly. “Some of the school assignments also needed us to code the models from scratch, which further reinforces our understanding.”

All this learning would see practical application in her current work with OCBC. As a Data Scientist at the OCBC AI Lab, she works with the Group Financial Crime Compliance Surveillance team to develop Anti-Money Laundering AI solutions. Here, she draws on her studies extensively. “The knowledge that I have gained from the Master’s programme comes in handy when I read through research papers. It helped me better understand complex math and terminologies used by the researchers.”

“A typical day in the job of a Data Scientist involves ensuring the readiness of the data, preprocessing the data, and training and testing our models,” she added.

But the seemingly blasé description does no justice to the truly exploratory and dynamic nature of her job. To understand, select and implement suitable AI solutions, Mei Yun constantly stays abreast of the latest research in AI while liaising with the Group Financial Crime Compliance Surveillance team and Data Engineering team to ensure her proposals are in-line with bank objectives.

This cooperative work highlights how OCBC always functions as a team. The Group Data Office comprises Data Analytics, Data Science (also known as AI Lab), Regional, Data Engineering, and model validation teams, which work in tandem to provide data-driven insights to improve banking functions. “There is a lot of cross-team sharing which is extremely helpful to my work,” she shared. These also translate into career opportunities, as OCBC has a receptive and open culture that encourages employee feedback and transferals to support staff growth.

Mei Yun concluded: “As an aspiring data scientist, banking is one of the better industries to be in as it has a data-rich ecosystem. You have a lot of different AI use cases in a bank that you can explore with. As you can see with the OCBC Postgraduate AI Scholarship and its in-house AI Lab, the company places a lot of emphasis on technological innovation to support its banking processes and you will definitely be able to learn a lot here in OCBC.”

Excelling With OCBC

Also getting a bright head start with OCBC is Regional Scholar Jhuan Christian. His specialisation is in big data. In his role as a Technical Business Analyst, he leads a team that creates dashboards that can generate various kinds of insights from the data.

He learnt these skills through a Bachelor of Physics and Applied Physics, sponsored by the OCBC Regional Scholarship. “OCBC Bank is one of the oldest and the largest trustworthy bank in Asia with a great track record of serving the public and the community,” he said. This strong reputation of OCBC, attracted him to pursue a scholarship with the bank.

His learning provided him key transferable skills that enable him to excel in his role. These include critical thinking, as well as systematic inquiry skills. “These skills are needed across any roles, because you will always encounter problems throughout your job and career; you need to know how to ask the right questions and how to approach the problem accordingly in order to solve it,” Jhuan said.

Jhuan is particularly grateful for the out-of-classroom learning experiences OCBC provided him. “The scholarship covered international exchange which is rarely given by any other scholarships. This allows students to gain exposure toward different cultures in other parts of the world. Not only that, but you can also opt for various internship experiences with OCBC throughout the programme.”

Upon graduation, he was also admitted to OCBC’s Graduate Talent Program (GTP), a programme designed for fresh graduates to gain exposure in different kinds of departments within the bank. This allows graduate talents to appreciate how different departments work, think and communicate. Thus, they are better able to lead in the future because they could appreciate the differences between each of the departments and teams that they will lead.

“Graduate Talents (GTs) are positioned in various departments across the bank, hence there is a wide array of career path that GTs can experience and undertake,” Jhuan enthused.

Like Mei Yun, he also emphasised the bank’s collaborative and warm culture. “Everyone here are nice and wonderful individuals. They foster a community based on trust and friendship. Your peers and supervisors will support you throughout your career by giving you advices, mentoring sessions, as well as assigned buddies.”

He had some final words of advice, citing a quote from Richard Feynman: “Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.”