Cyber crime makes an appearance as an issue private bankers will be asked to consider this year as part of their professional development, an industry group in Singapore says.

An industry group specialising in financial sector training in Singapore said private bankers must continue to focus on issues such as client suitability and risk awareness while adding the threat of cybercrime as a key challenge.

The recommendations came as data showed that almost 100 per cent of private banking professionals in Singapore undergoing “client advisor competency standards” or CACS last year accumulated the minimum requirement of at least 15 hours and almost three-quarters have exceeded that amount. The Institute of Banking and Finance Singapore issued figures on adoption of CACS and the attainment of CPD (continuing professional development) points by the Asian city-state’s private banking sector.

Some 99.7 per cent of these professionals have fulfilled the minimum of 15 hours' training for CACS, the Institute of Banking and Finance Singapore said in a statement.

The figures come at a time when talent management in the private banking industry, particularly in a region such as Asia where there are often concerns about a dearth of skilled professionals, remains an important issue. Among recent developments has been the launch of groups such as Temaswiss, a training and thought-leadership organisation that is headquartered in Singapore. (For more on this, see here.) The fact that cybercrime, among other issues, was mentioned as an area to focus on this year follows a run of high-profile hacking attacks on institutions, including banks such as JP Morgan, last year.

Reviewing the past year, the Institute said there was “a noticeable increase in the use of e-learning as a training methodology”, saying this may have been driven by increasing use of technology and a desire to be flexible.

“Excellence means matching your practice with your potential and the latest CPD statistics demonstrate the strong commitment the private banking industry has towards training. To maintain excellence in advisory services, CPDAG urges practitioners to not only meet CPD requirements but to also undertake additional hours of training specific to their bank’s practices,” Peter Flavel, chief executive, JP Morgan Private Wealth Management, Asia, and head of the CACS CPD Advisory Group (CPDAG), said in the statement.

The CPDAG group called on the industry to continue focusing on the following areas as training priorities this year: client suitability, risk concepts and awareness, wealth and estate planning, and understanding the implications from changing tax transparency laws, as well as two new areas: cyber security and implications of the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) for private bankers.