By Linette Lai

BANKS both local and foreign have taken a hit in the financial meltdown but they remain keen on hiring, especially information technology graduates with a business bent.

The fact that many big-name institutions have chosen Singapore as their global or regional IT hubs means they need to keep topping up the talent pool to meet their expansion plans.

British bank Barclays, for example, announced in February that it expects to more than double the number of staff at its global technology centre at Changi by the end of this year.

The trend has been noticed by faculty members at the School of Information Systems at the Singapore Management University (SMU), where banks have been asking for the curriculum vitaes of students.

SMU's Master of IT in Business (Financial Services) programme is proving the right course for the times.

It is tailored specifically to meet the banking industry's needs and course graduates are finding a buoyant job market.

The programme - jointly designed by SMU faculty members and banking professionals - enables students to better understand and manage processes and operations in banks.

It also prepares IT professionals from other industries for integration into the banking sector.

Standard Chartered Bank chief information officer Shee Tse Koon said: 'This programme churns out IT managers, IT executives, not entry-point database managers or programmers.

'They do not write the code but they run the entire development team and entire end-to-end project.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times.