AI Without Guardrails Is a Losing Bet, Singapore Bank Leaders Warn
Source: Singapore Business Review
Bank executives at the Asian Banking & Finance and Insurance Asia Summit in Singapore warned that governance, leadership and human oversight will determine whether financial institutions can scale AI safely and effectively.
Bank executives gathered in Singapore have issued a stark warning: artificial intelligence without proper governance is a losing bet. Speaking at the Asian Banking & Finance and Insurance Asia Summit on 1 July, leaders from ING, Maybank Singapore, Green Link Digital Bank and Prudential said AI governance, not technology, will determine which institutions successfully scale AI in the coming years.
The summit, held in Singapore, brought together senior executives from across the region to discuss the next phase of AI adoption in financial services. Speakers noted that AI has already demonstrated clear value in compliance, operations, anti-money laundering, know-your-customer processes, transaction monitoring, sustainability assessments and financial markets. The next frontier is deploying these capabilities responsibly while maintaining accountability, transparency and regulatory compliance.
Sherwin Siregar, former chief strategy and transformation officer at Prudential Assurance Singapore, urged organisations to stop viewing governance as a brake on AI adoption. "AI gives us speed, but speed needs direction, and that direction has to come from humans and leaders," he said. "Only speed times direction gives you velocity. Otherwise, AI will amplify broken processes and mistakes." Anand Sachdev, country manager for Singapore and head of South and Southeast Asia at ING, added that applying AI to inefficient processes risked significant spend without return on investment.
The warnings come as Singapore's financial sector accelerates AI deployment across use cases from customer service chatbots to high-stakes credit decisions and anti-fraud systems. The Monetary Authority of Singapore has been developing an AI governance framework specifically for financial institutions, and the industry is watching closely how regulation evolves alongside rapid adoption.
Why it matters for Singapore: As the region's financial hub, Singapore's banks are among the most aggressive AI adopters in Asia. The message from this summit is clear: the institutions that invest in AI governance alongside AI capability will pull ahead. Singapore's regulators, led by MAS, are already laying the groundwork with sector-specific AI guidelines. For the city-state's ambition to be both a leading AI adopter and a trusted financial centre, getting the governance piece right is as important as deploying the technology itself.