TORONTO -- Scotiabank is investing $250 million over the next decade to help its employees adapt to the digital economy, including funding to help workers who have or will be displaced by technological change.
The bank's CEO Brian Porter says the re-skilling initiative, to be launched next January, will also include a online training portal for all employees, career counselling and an enhanced tuition allowance for those looking to re-educate themselves.
Technology continues to disrupt the banking industry and Canadian lenders have been investing heavily in innovation as consumers do more of their banking online and via mobile, rather than physical branches.
Speaking at the bank's annual general meeting of shareholders today, Porter says more than 60 per cent of its customers now interact with the bank digitally.
Last year, Scotiabank unveiled a 70,000-square-foot "digital factory" separate from its main campus to lure high-tech skilled workers and develop technological innovations.
But in 2015, Scotiabank had also warned employees that certain offices across the country would close over the next two years as it digitizes a number of document-processing functions.
