CBC plans to raise its annual technology spending to more than $771mn, according to Bloomberg, as Singapore’s second-largest lender leans harder into AI and digital banking. The increase marks one of the first strategic signals from Tan Teck Long, who took over as group chief executive on 1 January 2026.
Tan succeeded Helen Wong, who retired at the end of 2025 after steering the bank through an earlier phase of digital investment.
The reported figure of roughly $771mn sits close to the S$1bn mark in local currency terms, a threshold OCBC has flagged in various technology commitments over recent years.
The bank has said it will use 2026 to embed AI, digital and data more deeply across customer journeys, according to its 2025 annual report.
The stated aim is to build scale, personalise services and wring out cost efficiencies, the familiar trio of justifications for a rising bank technology bill.
Around three in five of OCBC’s employees have taken part in AI, digital or data training over the past three years, the bank has said.
That workforce push matters because the spending is not only about systems. It reflects a bet that staff across the bank can put AI tools to work rather than leaving them to a central team.
OCBC has framed its ambitions around AI, digital and data as a single stack rather than three separate projects.
The bank has spent recent years modernising a digital core, an unglamorous but expensive foundation for the customer-facing features it now wants to layer on top.
Tan has struck a measured tone on the outlook. For 2026 he expects total income to be stable to growing. Against that backdrop, a higher technology budget reads as a deliberate reallocation rather than a spend fuelled by soaring revenue.
OCBC has been building the case for years. It committed about S$500mn to an innovation hub in Singapore’s Punggol Digital District, a site due for completion in 2027.
The bank has also pushed into newer plumbing, recently backing a $1bn blockchain-powered US commercial paper programme. Those moves fit a regional pattern in which Singapore’s big banks compete as much on technology stacks as on branch networks.
DBS and UOB, OCBC’s local rivals, have made their own loud commitments to AI and digital infrastructure in recent years. In that contest, standing still is not really an option, and a bigger technology bill is the price of staying in the race.
The strategy is not without friction. Rising technology costs squeeze the cost-to-income ratio precisely when margins across Asian banking are under pressure.
Tan inherits that tension alongside the scrutiny of OCBC’s influential long-term shareholders, a dynamic that will shape how freely he can spend. Any sustained rise in the technology bill will have to be squared with the bank’s reputation for cost discipline.
The broader industry logic is hard to argue with. McKinsey has estimated that generative AI could add $200bn to $340bn a year in value across banking, a prize lenders are racing to capture.
OCBC is not alone in leaning on the technology. Rival HSBC found that AI still trails human wealth managers when the money actually moves, a reminder that the returns are uneven.
Even so, the direction of travel is set, from banks probing the trust gap with big tech to Singapore’s state-level push on blockchain innovation and adoption. For OCBC, the higher budget is the clearest sign yet that its new chief intends to keep pace rather than pull back.
The test will be whether more than $771mn a year buys measurable gains in productivity and customer growth, or simply keeps the bank running to stand still.
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Alina Maria Stan