OCBC Bank helps businesses to digitize
Singapore bank OCBC Bank has made use of technology to introduce products that offer an edge over others:
Singapore’s multinational banking and financial services company OCBC Bank, or Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation, has invested substantially in digitization efforts in the last 5 years. The bank has clearly understood that there is no other alternative than migration towards digitization as businesses are now totally dependent on digital solutions to offer greater convenience, speed and simplicity for customers. The bank has also realized that digital payment solutions have helped bridge the gap between business stakeholders, allowing them to continue their day-to-day operations through online platforms.
OCBC ONECOLLECT
One of its recent tech innovations is OCBC OneCollect, an app that facilitates crossborder merchant payments between Malaysia and Singapore. Local payments are made possible through DuitNow QR, and cross-border payments from Singapore through PayNow QR.
This app is essentially for business owners and frontline staff, who can download it and start collecting with little technical knowledge required. The users can also save on merchant commission and skip the hassle of setting up or renting a point-of-sale equipment. On the other hand, customers can pay with ease through the scan-and-pay apps from any of the 9 participating PayNow banks in Singapore. The bank has also accelerated its integration with payment gateway providers to enable merchants to conduct online transactions.
Similarly, there is an API developed for credit notifications, which has immensely helped businesses to easily reconcile their receivables, including online transfers, cheques, cash and credit cards.
OCBC VELOCITY
Then there is OCBC Velocity, the bank’s digital business solution, accessible via a web page or a mobile phone. It has been upgraded in order to allow users to have a comprehensive overview of their company’s accounts, manage cash flow and operations, as well as manage the company’s billings.
The product is available to startups and large businesses and provides intuitive data visuals on the company’s cash flow. It also has features such as sending e-invoices and optimizing payables.
The bank is now in the process of enhancing its wealth management platform for its Premier Banking and Premier Private Client (PPC) customers. One of the components of this enhanced platform is OCBC RM Chat for premier banking and PPC customers. It is a first in the country and the result of a sandbox innovation. The bank intends to provide more offerings under this service while moving ultimately to offering it to all the bank’s retail customers as well.
DEVELOPING EXPERTISE IN AI
The bank is into AI in a big way. It had recently announced that it has earmarked $10 million over the next 3 years to develop inhouse expertise in AI. It has already created a dedicated AI division. Called AI Lab@TOV, the department is intended as a ‘test bed’ for new AI technologies developed using the bank’s sandbox and APIs to experiment with real-life anonymous customer data in a secure environment.
However, the bank is not new to AI and its applications. It had introduced an AI-powered chatbot, Emma, in 2016, to respond to customers’ queries on home and renovation loans, and has since raked in more than S$100 million in home loans. It has also joined hands with Israeli data analytics firm ThetaRay for making use of AI to identify potential suspicious transactions. The collaboration has also facilitated cutting down the number of manual review of transactions by 35% and increased accuracy four-fold.
The Lab plans to make use of technology developed by Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research to introduce natural language processing services that can be used to respond to customer queries using voice messaging. It is also proposing to deploy Amazon Web Services DeepLens, a video-based machine learning technique that uses neural networks to learn and make predictions. This is expected to lead to breakthroughs in facial recognition technology for use at the branch and across the bank’s ATMs.
IMPARTING DIGITAL SKILLS
The bank is now in the process of imparting digital skills to its entire workforce. It will also add some 1500 IT staff, comprising application developers, cybersecurity experts, blockchain specialists and data scientists to its tech unit soon. Alongside, the bank has increased its investment in technology staff training and development over the past 5 years. It has recently introduced a new e-learning platform where tech staff will have access to over 2000 courses. Some 23,000 employees have acquired higher levels of digital proficiency using these programs.
The bank has developed a system whereby its customers in Singapore can use their SingPass for availing digital banking services, using the bank’s smartphone app or internet banking network. It is the first bank in Singapore to have introduced such a service. SingPass, or Singapore Personal Access, is a system in Singapore used in electronically interacting conveniently and safely with more than 60 government departments. Using SingPass customers can now open bank accounts, access banking services and make payments online seamlessly and safely.
This article has been compiled based on publicly available information on the web, particularly the bank’s own website.