Issuu

THE DIGITAL BANKER ISSUE 2 2023

THE NEED FOR GLOBAL INSTANT PAYMENTS FRAMEWORKS

UNLOCKING THE FINTECH FUNDING

PUZZLE GENERATIVE

IS REINVENTING

BANKING DIGITAL BANKING INNOVATIONS AT

HSBC, OCBC, AMBANK AND MORE.

THE UK

OPEN BANKING REVOLUTION

B A N K I N G

I N S I G H T S

E X E C U T I V E

I N T E R V I E W S

R E S E A R C H

A N D

A N A L Y S I S

Published by: The Digital Banker (A brand of Coeus Intelligence Pte. Ltd.) 101B Telok Ayer Street #03-02 Singapore 068574 : +65 6719 8054 : info@thedigitalbankeronline.com

Foreword As the world of finance rapidly adapts to a generative AI-driven world, in this edition of The Digital Banker magazine we are pleased to share with our readers our view on what impact Gen AI technology will have in banking. While numerous use cases and practical applications have emerged, the purported competitive advantages on offer across the front, middle and back office need to be weighed against the legal and reputational risks that are likely to emerge. Certainly, with the onset of Gen AI, there is an expectation of significant enhancements in operational capabilities that will have a lasting impact on Bank workflow efficiencies and risk governance. Likewise, the push towards instant and real-time payment infrastructures continues to gather steam as new payment rails and cross-border schemes respond to evolving market dynamics and changing customer behaviour. Institutional response is being driven by both conventional banks and their paytech/fintech counterparts that are actively seeking to modernise payment systems, while having to overcome legacy technology challenges, regulatory hurdles and emerging digital fraud. As instant payments become ubiquitous there are considerable opportunities for stakeholders to enable fully automated, seamless and cost-efficient payment transactions. Similarly, as open banking takes root in multiple jurisdictions, we closely examine its outcome in the UK in terms of its efficacy in promoting competition and driving innovation in the country’s financial sector. Indeed, the UK has been one of the first markets globally to adopt open banking frameworks, through PSD2 and the Open Banking Standard, but a lack of commercial incentives is limiting the potential and scope of API development. Perhaps, a more collaborative approach is needed that encourages the formation of broader open banking use cases, supported by more flexible frameworks, to widen the pool of active users. Finally, the effects of continued anaemic global economic growth in conjunction with high interest rates have had an adverse knock-on effect for fintech companies seeking to raise long-term capital. With funding recording a considerable slump in the first half of 2023 and economic headwinds dampening prospects, fintech players will have to contend with a temporarily depressed outlook and re-prioritise sustainable and value-creating projects. This remains a good opportunity for fintech leaders to streamline operations, while adapting to a shift in investor interest and quietly ride out the storm.

Nirav Patel Managing Director The Digital Banker & Global Private Banker

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Contents

Navigating the Ups and Downs of UK’s Open Banking Revolution

The advent of open banking heralds a transformative era, promising to reshape not only the operating model of financial institutions but also the user experience for millions of consumers and businesses alike. The UK, being an archetype of modern banking, embarked on this journey.

Embracing the Future: Absa’s Digital Leap Forward In the competitive landscape of global finance, Absa Bank (Mauritius) Ltd has asserted its place at the forefront of technological innovation. Absa has pioneered several innovative solutions, including Absa Access Online and Trade Management Online.

Standard Chartered Bank: Transforming digital CX through calibration and precision

Recognised for embracing and harnessing the transformative power of technology, AmBank has strategically crafted an outstanding digital roadmap.

Alliance Bank: Simplicity and accessibility shape digital interactions for SMEs Malaysian-based Alliance Bank has stepped up to the plate to help MicroSME and Small Business customers through their financing challenges.

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Backbase Engagement Banking Platform: A unified platform for the customer-first era

Backbase has pioneered a people-first approach to financial services through its Engagement Banking Platform (EBP) materially elevating the customer experience of clients.

The Pressing Need for a Global Instant Payments Framework The financial sector is witnessing an increasing demand for instant payment services, a cry echoed globally and catalysed by shifting customer expectations for swift, convenient, and seamless fund transfers.

Standard Chartered Bank (SC) deftly recognised that ensuring superior digital experiences would be a key differentiator in ensuring long-term customer engagement.

AmBank’s Winning Strategy: Merging Technology and Customer Experience for Next-Gen Banking

Standard Chartered Bank: Fundamentally transforming digital CX in wealth management and bancassurance Standard Chartered Bank has systematically redesigned engagement models and crafted unique client journeys to provide greater value and convenience for customers.

Contents

Citi transforming digital engagement through the CitiManager® App and CitiDirect® platform

SCB Malaysia prudently leveraged its core engagements, particularly with the affluent customer segment, to launch a series of targeted propositions addressing their financial needs.

CitiManager® App and CitiDirect® platform has facilitated corporate cardholders with managing their cards on-the-go and enabled a oneclick access to commercial clients.

HSBC HK: Leading the transformation in mobile banking through customercentricity

With the aim of being the ‘bank in your pocket’, the HSBC HK App is continually pushing boundaries having introduced nearly 200 enhancements and features in 2022 alone.

Mashreq’s Digital Frontier: Steering Innovation in Middle East/Africa’s Banking Landscape

MONIX’s F.I.R.E. Ecosystem Strategy Drives Expansion of Digital Nano Loans FINNIX to the Underbanked in Thailand To facilitate the 100% digital lending solution, MONIX has developed the F.I.R.E. (Finance, Intel, Reward, Empowerment) Ecosystem strategy.

Nedbank: Pioneering the ‘Beyond Banking’ Experience

OCBC: A Vanguard of Digital Banking Innovations

Mashreq, one of the leading financial institutions in the Middle East and Africa (MENA) region, is committed to elevate the landscape of corporate and institutional banking services.

SCB Malaysia: Revolutionising card payments for the emerging affluent

Nedbank has long established its prowess in the banking industry, offering a diverse suite of services tailored to the varied needs of its clientele. Their ambition goes beyond just providing financial services; they’re committed to delivering a ‘beyond banking’ experience.

At the forefront of banking revolutions, OCBC continues to reshape the way businesses interact with financial institutions. Whether through the seamless integration of technology or a deep commitment to enhance customer experiences, OCBC has set the gold standard.

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Contents

Standard Chartered Bank’s (Singapore) focus on creating better digital experiences through innovation drives user adoption

As client experience is being redefined, Standard Chartered Corporate, Commercial & Institutional Banking (CCIB) segment proactively developed and upgraded their digital platform.

With the focus on elevating customer experience, Standard Chartered Bank Singapore has prioritised technological advancements to both its mobile and internet banking platforms in meeting client needs.

Payment Asia Offers Digital Asset Management Services to Bridge Traditional Finance and Web3

With the world speeding up into the digital era, Payment Asia has incorporated digital asset custodial services into its corporate treasury capabilities.

Prudential Thailand: Optimising omni-channel customer journeys for creating lasting experiences

Exclusive Interview with Syed Shoaib Pasha, Global Head Digital Channels, Standard Chartered Syed Shoaib Pasha: “At Standard Chartered, our objective is to deliver a seamless, instant and personal customer experience.”

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SC China Mobile App: Reimagining the mobile banking experience to empower customers The Chinese banking landscape remains one of the largest marketplaces globally and Standard Chartered Bank (China) has uniquely positioned itself leveraging its digital competencies.

Prudential Thailand has systematically transformed its channel engagement strategy that has contributed to continuous improvement in digital experience through its customer-centric approach.

Standard Chartered: Enhancing the client journey through new platform development

South Indian Bank: Staying ahead of the curve through Next-Gen digital offerings South Indian Bank (SIB) has a dedicated strategy designed to leverage the bestin-class technologies to support the sophisticated needs of SMEs across all touchpoints and powered by resilient and scalable systems.

Contents

Standard Chartered Securities (B) Sdn Bhd: Empowering clients through innovation and digitalisation

Standard Chartered Saadiq Malaysia, the Islamic banking arm of Standard Chartered, has uniquely positioned itself as a provider of innovative Shariahcompliant banking solutions within the country.

Standard Chartered Securities (B) Sdn Bhd (SCSB) has expanded its investment portfolio to service the unique needs of Brunei’s affluent and emerging affluent customer base.

Trust Bank: Creating tangible customer value by establishing new standards in digital CX

Trust emerged as the first of Singapore’s digitally native banks to launch fully to the public, backed by a unique partnership between Standard Chartered Bank and the FairPrice Group.

UnionBank of the Philippines: New digitally-based transaction banking ecosystems facilitate client journeys UnionBank of the Philippines has been consistently seeking to build innovative digital solutions to accommodate the changing requirements of its varied customer base.

Standard Chartered Saadiq: Unlocking new value and halal opportunities for clients

Banking Reinvented through the Lens of Generative AI As the digital age accelerates, artificial intelligence (AI) continues to take centre stage, especially in the financial sector. One subset of AI, generative AI, is particularly gaining momentum and promises to reshape the front, middle and back office of the banking industry.

HSBC Singapore: Redefining digital wealth by empowering the customer HSBC Singapore firmly believes in empowering customers to bank securely anytime and anywhere. It aspires to become the region’s leading and pre-eminent wealth manager.

UOB repositioning revitalises network to drive better customer outcomes Singapore’s UOB has fine-tuned its client engagement strategy by rethinking its optimal channel mix, leveraging customer insights, and prioritising experiential wellness.

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Navigating the Ups and Downs of UK’s Open Banking Revolution The advent of open banking heralds a transformative era, promising to reshape not only the operating model of financial institutions but also the user experience for millions of consumers and businesses alike. The UK, being an archetype of modern banking, embarked on this journey with the launch of open banking in 2018. As a conduit to facilitate seamless sharing of financial data among authorised institutions, open banking anticipated fostering a milieu of innovation, enhancing consumer choice, and creating a competitive yet collaborative ecosystem among banks and fintechs. The need for open banking comes from the many benefits it promises to bring to everyone involved. It helps create a financial system that includes everyone, closes gaps, and ensures that the perks of tech improvements in banking reach every level of the economy.

of alignment among ASPSPs (Account Servicing Payment Service Providers, essentially banks) concerning the tangible and intangible benefits of open banking further muddies the waters, contributing to a disjointed approach towards its proliferation and evolution.

Despite the commendable strides made since its inception, open banking in the UK has encountered its share of roadblocks and criticisms, often teetering between the potential for groundbreaking innovation and the reality of suboptimal adoption and utilisation.

The disparity between the envisaged success and the current adoption rate of open banking cannot be ignored. While over 7 million businesses and consumers have employed open banking since its launch, this number merely represents around 10% of consumers and SMEs, indicating a perceptible lag in widespread acceptance and utilisation of open banking capabilities.1

Challenges and Limitations: Stifling the Growth Trajectory In a report entitled ‘The (Unmet) Potential of Open Banking’, commissioned by NatWest Group and crafted by Oxera, an economics and finance consultancy firm, the nuanced challenges inhibiting the expansive growth of open banking were revealed. The report underscores the pivotal economic impediments that seemingly bind the potential of open banking from being fully realised. One salient challenge delineated in the report is the apparent dearth of commercial incentives to develop or enhance APIs, which serve as the linchpin for open banking, enabling data sharing among institutions. Moreover, the lack

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Exploring New Horizons: Potential Pathways Forward In the quest to untangle the complex web of challenges, the report delineates three plausible routes forward, each with its own merits and demerits, aiming to kindle the next phase of open banking in the UK. The first route advocates mandating banks to offer a wider array of open banking use cases and necessitating them to provide the requisite data via APIs free of charge. This approach, while ensuring standardisation and wide-ranging availability of data, may be met with resistance due to the potential financial implications on banks.

“A collective effort is paramount to carve out new, flexible frameworks and commercial incentives that can support a much broader spectrum of open banking use cases.”

The second pathway explores the area of commercialised APIs, encouraging banks to augment open banking use cases through premium APIs. This route, while offering a commercial incentive to banks, runs the risk of creating a fragmented landscape where access to premium data is gated behind paywalls. The third and novel route proposed by the report centres around enabling a multi-party system. This approach entails the emergence of multiparty systems that possess a commercial incentive to expand the open banking ecosystem through the formulation of new, adaptive frameworks for industry collaboration.

The Likely Way Forward: A Convergence of Strategies? As the stakeholders of open banking traverse this intricate maze of challenges and potential solutions, the likely way forward necessitates a well-calibrated blend of regulatory mandates, commercial incentives, and collaborative frameworks. Claire Melling, Head of Bank of APIs at NatWest Group, articulates a sentiment that resonates with the crux of the matter when she said that “banks, fintechs and regulators need to work together to design new, flexible frameworks and commercial

incentives that will support a far wider range of Open Banking use cases.” Indeed, a collective effort is paramount to carve out new, flexible frameworks and commercial incentives that can support a much broader spectrum of open banking use cases. By acting upon the recommendations encapsulated in the report, the potential for open banking to blossom into a hub of innovative financial services becomes tangible. It is also true that different routes may be optimal for varied open banking use cases, and some may benefit from hybrid approaches. For instance, mandating the development of an API, while leaving its commercialisation to the discretion of the banks themselves, or to a multi-party system, could offer a balanced pathway that melds regulatory oversight with commercial viability. The journey of open banking, albeit fraught with challenges, presents a unique opportunity to reshape the financial landscape of the UK. The experiences and lessons gleaned from the initial phases of open banking will undoubtedly shape the strategies and policies adopted in the ensuing chapters of this transformative journey, steering it towards a future where the potentials are fully realised, and the benefits cascade through every facet of the economy.

1 – The (Unmet) Potential of Open Banking - NatWest Group/Oxera

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Embracing the Future: Absa’s Digital Leap Forward In the competitive landscape of global finance, Absa Bank (Mauritius) Ltd has asserted its place at the forefront, sweeping a trio of accolades at the Middle East & Africa Innovation Awards 2023, organised by The Digital Banker. The bank has distinguished itself as the ‘Best Bank for Trade Finance in Mauritius’, showcased an award-winning ‘Best Transaction Banking Innovation Lab’, and was highly commended for ‘Outstanding Use of Technology by a Transaction Bank’. Nirav Patel, Managing Director of The Digital Banker, reflected on the bank’s achievements, stating: “Absa Bank Mauritius’ cuttingedge digital transformation strategy and its commitment to continuous innovation have undoubtedly set it apart. Its relentless pursuit of customer-centric digital solutions, and the strategic development of trade corridors with other regions, made it a standout winner in these categories.”

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Notably, Absa has pioneered several innovative solutions, including Absa Access Online and Trade Management Online, enhancing their trade finance and transaction banking services. The bank has also dedicated substantial efforts towards establishing strong financial corridors with Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, the US, and China, further cementing its status as a strategic player for the Absa Group Limited, a Pan-African bank with global reach.

The Transformation Blueprint Recognising the paramount role of technology in the financial sector, Absa has implemented a range of pioneering solutions, streamlining its operations and delivering seamless client experiences. Its ongoing commitment to digital transformation, although challenging, is proving to be a successful strategy in the bank’s journey towards growth and innovation. At the core of Absa Bank Mauritius’ ambitious digital transformation strategy is an innovative dual-pronged approach, the ‘Explore-Exploit Continuum’. This approach is a novel blueprint for the bank’s progression, designed to balance the imperative of maintaining efficient, cost-effective operations with the pursuit of new growth avenues. The ‘Exploit’ aspect of the strategy revolves around optimising and digitally empowering Absa’s existing business models. This includes leveraging modern technologies to refine the bank’s operations, enhance the efficiency of its current services, and drive cost-effectiveness. The primary goal is to create leaner, more streamlined processes that offer added value to clients while ensuring robust operational management within the bank. It entails not just the integration of digital technology into existing products and services but also the transformation of operational processes and organisational structures to be more agile and responsive. On the other hand, the ‘Explore’ facet represents the bank’s forward-looking perspective, focusing on constructing innovative digital business models for comprehensive market reach and exponential growth. Here, Absa is devoted to envisioning and creating new ways of banking, employing advanced technologies to not only disrupt traditional banking models but also to tap into new customer segments. This includes developing new products and services tailored to the digital age, redesigning customer journeys, and entering untapped markets. This strategy is especially crucial for driving Absa’s competitive edge in a fastevolving banking landscape marked by increasing competition from fintechs and non-bank financial institutions.

“Recognising the paramount role of technology in the financial sector, Absa has implemented a range of pioneering solutions, streamlining its operations and delivering seamless client experiences.” Together, the Explore-Exploit Continuum forms a comprehensive approach to digital transformation, enabling Absa to maintain and enhance its existing operations while simultaneously innovating and branching out into new business territories. This symbiotic relationship between exploration and exploitation ensures that Absa remains on the cutting edge of the banking industry, meeting and exceeding the expectations of its customers in an increasingly digital world.

Absa’s Strategic Wins Absa’s digital strategy, guided by five key themes - digital onboarding, product innovation, reimagining payments, superior digital channels, and digitalising internal processes - has been instrumental in garnering a significant uptick in the use of its digital services. The digital-first culture has led to a substantial reduction in the bank’s branch footprint and over 30% growth year on year in digital adoption. Simultaneously, Absa’s achievements in the realm of trade finance have been instrumental in securing its recognition as the Best Bank for Trade Finance in Mauritius. The bank’s flagship platforms, Absa Access Online and Trade Management Online, provide businesses with secure, roundthe-clock access to a wide range of trade finance solutions.

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Moreover, as the Trade Asset Hub and Financial Institutions (FI) Trade Hub for the Absa Group, Absa Bank Mauritius has been proactive in delivering bespoke solutions to cater to its clients’ needs. Initiatives include the creation of tailored solutions for clients in the Fuel Trading Space, responding to the significant rise in energy prices post-pandemic. Looking ahead, the bank remains committed to facilitating trade flows into and out of Africa whilst adhering to its overarching ESG ambitions. In its ongoing pursuit of digitalisation and customer-centricity, Absa Bank Mauritius has launched an ambitious digital conversion programme expected to achieve 100% digital penetration of transactions by 2023. This initiative is part of the bank’s sustainability agenda, which aims to significantly reduce its carbon footprint by minimising paper usage. As Absa continues to foster a culture of experimentation and learning, embracing emerging technologies, and working collaboratively towards its objectives, its

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commitment to harnessing technology to foster growth and innovation appears to be a promising path to maintaining its status as a leader in the banking sector.

“Together, the ExploreExploit Continuum forms a comprehensive approach to digital transformation, enabling Absa to maintain and enhance its existing operations while simultaneously innovating and branching out into new business territories.”

Standard Chartered Bank: Transforming digital CX through calibration and precision As digital experiences are being redefined across industries and new benchmarks of digitally-based standards being established by big-tech companies via their super-apps, best-in-class digital delivery especially within a financial services context remained an ongoing challenge. This became more pronounced during the pandemic period that registered considerable growth in digital interactions across all touchpoints. Standard Chartered Bank (SC) deftly recognised that ensuring superior digital experiences would be a key differentiator in ensuring long-term customer engagement. It is within this backdrop that the Bank prioritised augmenting its various digital platforms as a means to driving customer satisfaction and advocacy. This required constituting a transformation programme for its mobile and internet banking channels to ensure that customer experiences remained mobile-first, contextual and simple backed with the requisite infrastructure needed to support desired platform enhancement and system features. Furthermore, having the appropriate tools to source customer feedback for continual improvements and adjustments to the digital journey was equally paramount.

Delivering value with speed through Velocity In 2022, SC prudently executed the Velocity Project in its China and Pakistan markets with a view towards revamping the user journey by ushering in a renaissance in terms of digital experience through a new mobile app. The project’s stated objectives were manifold and included not just modernising the SC mobile banking experience but to holistically upgrade the user experience by elevating existing features to Nitro 5.0 incorporating the latest UX standards available.

The value creation for clients in the form of accelerated delivery of digital services coupled with greatly enhanced consistency has led to smoother end-to-end journeys particularly for onboarding and purchase scenarios. Effectively, this has enriched the digital experience for customers, who require fewer steps to complete common tasks and access simplified navigation with faster loading time in a secure transaction environment. Importantly, SC Mobile is tracking well in terms of Apple Store and Google Play ratings for both the China and Pakistan markets with average ratings increasing from 2.5 to 4.5. Furthermore, the Bank recorded an improvement in customer satisfaction and NPS by 20% YoY with mobile interactions and engagement registering a similarly impressive rise of 25% YoY all achieved within 3.5-month span.

Enabling a safer online transaction environment through Postgres database migration The Bank also undertook a PostgreSQL migration as a means to ensure that its AE internet banking applications will be able to run on the cloud in the future with ease and precision and deliver new features to customers faster. More critically

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the Bank was keen to implement internal control systems such as data at rest, database password rotation, security monitoring and anti-malware agents and security patches. The migration made closure of these vulnerabilities possible particularly data at rest encryption and password rotation. PostgreSQL is well positioned to run complex, datadriven applications and customers stand to benefit from conducting their banking transactions in a secure environment. SC’s technology team did have to overcome technical challenges during the implementation process as no standing solution was available for data replication and transfer. To address this an inhouse extract, transform and load (ETL) tool was created and robustly tested under various scenarios so that that DB2 migration to the PostgreSQL database could be made possible with perfect data accuracy. For the Bank the new database system enabled it to realise USD 100,000 in cost savings per annum given the opensource nature of PostgreSQL and minimal subscription cost. As the new database server is hosted separately there were no planned or unplanned outages to the system and any new business enhancements or security patch changes are executed faster and in a more controlled setting. Furthermore, the ETL tool is reusable for deployment in other markets that are to undergo a migration to PostgreSQL.

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Channelling the voice of the customer for improved digital experiences As part of its digital services transformation strategy, SC has prudently introduced a mobile satisfaction score feature to not only gauge immediate customer sentiment but also empower customers to provide journey-specific feedback. This allows crucial and actionable feedback to collated for use by the business and is instrumental in improving customer satisfaction, minimising drop-offs and encouraging further adoption. There are three core modules that underpin the mobile satisfaction score that includes: 1. 2. 3.

Feedback Capture Enrich Data and Use AI to categorise data Report

The sourced data is enriched with key information comprising customer segment, channel usage pattern, demographics, OS version etc. Artificial intelligence is then leveraged to auto-categorise data and sort critical positive and negative feedback for use by respective business teams to better understand what resonates with customers and how to address their pain points. Moreover, all new enhancements are directly informed and guided by the mobile satisfaction feature that helps set priorities for new digital innovation. The Bank’s efforts have been validated with five

different markets garnering 4+ Apple Store / Google Play store ratings with the average rating jumping from a 2.5 to 4.3. Moreover, global mobile engagement has risen by 20% YoY with the Singapore and Hong Kong markets leading this shift and the Bank intending to roll out the mobile satisfaction score capture to other markets.

Facilitating China northbound customers through digitisation Another effective initiative launched by the Bank to drive service excellence is its digitisation of manual processes comprising online customer registration and terms & condition (T&C) acceptance. Previously, Greater Bay Area (GBA) customers that were northbound would be using their PIN mailer to register for online banking, while bank staff would manually assist customers in completing forms at the branch. This changed with digitisation as both key functions can now be executed digitally either via online banking or the SC Mobile App. In-person branch visits are no longer required thereby reducing turnaround times and paper-based transactions,

“As part of its digital services transformation strategy, SC has prudently introduced a mobile satisfaction score feature to not only gauge immediate customer sentiment but also empower customers to provide journey-specific feedback.” while online banking registrations can be set-up immediately upon account creation. Clearly, for the Bank this has translated in to costs savings with customers availing greater convenience. Indeed, SC has been focussed on materially improving customer journeys and empowering its customers through deepening its clients’ inapp engagements with features such as budget management, intelligent alerts and nudges, gamification and real-time incentives. Customers are able to navigate and transact in a safe and userfriendly environment and also provide ratings based on their interaction. Fundamentally, Standard Chartered Bank is delivering on its commitment towards providing secure and seamless banking experience to its customers. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has recognised Standard Chartered Bank for an “Outstanding Digital CX – Mobile Banking (China and Pakistan)”, “Outstanding Digital CX – Internet Banking”, “Best Use of Customer Feedback” and a Highly Acclaimed “Outstanding Hybrid CX in Wealth Management” distinction at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

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Alliance Bank: Simplicity and accessibility shapes digital interactions for SMEs As the increasing role and contribution of SMEs in facilitating economic growth across markets becomes apparent, access to continued and uninterrupted funding becomes pivotal in powering their future expansion plans. Indeed, the SME financing gap necessitates rapid loan disbursement and the ability of lenders to quickly onboard and engage SMEs for addressing their specific banking needs in a convenient and flexible manner becomes critical. Malaysian-based Alliance Bank has stepped up to the plate to help Micro-SME and Small Business customers through their financing challenges with the launch of the mobile-friendly web-based Alliance Digital SME platform. This forms part of the Bank’s recent additions to its existing stack of product offerings, in response to broader market

shifts with branch-based transactions effectively expanding to include digital channels. The challenge for traditional lenders is ensuring that the customer transition to digital is securely conducted for SME clients, given their familiarity with traditional faceto-face arrangements, which stands addressed through Alliance Digital SME.

Alliance Bank Malaysia Berhad Group Chief SME and Commercial Banking Officer Raymond Chui at the recent Digital CX Awards Gala to accept the accolades for Alliance Bank’s customer-centric digital innovations which have helped broaden access to financing to MSMEs

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Alliance Digital SME transforms client experience by re-imagining customer journey Certainly, the Alliance Digital SME user journey has been enhanced with a simplification of the qualification process an automated onboarding journey for Micro-SME and Small Business customer. Furthermore, a designated virtual relationship manager proved to be a first-of-its-kind in Malaysia, remotely engaging with clients through video calls and conducting complete assessments of respective digital loan applications. Importantly, all relevant compliance procedures involving customer checks and risk profiling is embedded within the remote video call and clients can apply for digital loans on-the-go through their mobile device. Moreover, Alliance Bank ensured that the role of the relationship manager would remain unchanged throughout the revamped digital customer journey as process enhancements facilitated the 61% of digitally active SME clients in 2022 up from 56% in 2021.

Branchless banking model drives digital engagement and customer satisfaction Likewise, Alliance Bank’s simplified and paperless application process has made it frictionless and flexible for SME clients to authorise transactions at their own convenience, thereby enabling the Bank to overcome challenges from its comparatively smaller branch footprint. A case in point is the straight-through-processing (STP) option for the

“Alliance Bank through initiatives such as the Alliance Digital SME continues to demonstrate its ability to develop new digital platforms that are sustainable and scalable across segments and products.”

Business Current Account (BCA), with Alliance Bank registering a 100% growth in customer acquisition, while reducing redundant steps and drastically improving turn-around-times (TAT). In addition, Alliance Bank also engaged with RinggitPlus to enable easy onboarding via a WhatsApp loan application. The Bank has recorded a 100% engagement rate with more than 70% of clients completing the application and submitting required documents. The efficacy of this approach is built on the Bank’s ability to successfully meet customer needs and provides added convenience should the customer be unable to visit the branch in person.

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The Alliance Bank Digital SME team picked up three awards at the recent Digital CX Awards 2023 and are seen here with Alliance Bank Malaysia Berhad Group Chief SME and Commercial Banking Officer Raymond Chui (centre) at the gala event recently.

It is this pursuit by Alliance Bank of superior customer experience inspired by human empathy and aided by technology that has translated in to an NPS score of 36% post-pandemic from 25% in the pre-pandemic era, with 6 in 10 customers being happy with the service during Covid-19.

Multi-channel capabilities unlock additional value for SME clients Likewise, the Bank continues to build on its sales-reach strategy to enable multi-channel engagement models, with its sole objective being in maintaining Alliance Bank’s agility in pivoting multiple constructs of its customer-centric service model. Effectively, this translates into being able to provide multiple options for customers ranging from self-serve which is tailored for the new generation of digitally-savvy customers, in-person staff assisted service that makes use of a whole

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suite of banking services normally available at a branch compressed on to a tablet or remote assistance that combines technology with human support to provide personalised banking services. Fundamentally, Alliance Bank through initiatives such as the Alliance Digital SME continues to demonstrate its ability to develop new digital platforms that are sustainable and scalable across segments and products. It has also delivered on ensuring that SME clients are truly empowered with a “Bank in Your Pocket” as reductions in acquisition costs and cost-to-serve are realised. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has recognised Alliance Bank as the “Best SME Bank for Digital CX in Malaysia”, “Best Fintech for Digital CX – Business Lender” and for an “Outstanding Digital CX for Financial Inclusion” at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

AmBank’s Winning Strategy: Merging Technology and Customer Experience for Next-Gen Banking The world of financial services has borne witness to a radical paradigm shift in recent years, propelled by relentless digital innovation. This landscape is no longer an arena where banks can passively participate. The emerging digital economy has opened the door to new opportunities, and banking models have been reset, offering a fertile playground for those who dare to be disruptors. At the forefront of these game-changers is Malaysia’s AmBank. Recognised for embracing and harnessing the transformative power of technology, AmBank has strategically crafted an outstanding digital roadmap. Since 2020, the Bank has been spearheading customer-centric digital initiatives, enhancing its retail banking operations while significantly elevating the customer experience.

Implementing digitally-led retail innovation to reshape customer journeys In line with its vision to deliver a 360˚ holistic banking experience with the digital banking channel as the backbone, AmBank undertook a strategic realignment of its customer engagement framework. This has successfully drawn a 2.3 million-strong customer base, with 65% digitally active users. The result? An intuitive, user-friendly platform that caters to key services, which translates into an impressive 84% customer satisfaction with their flagship AmOnline platform. AmBank’s commitment to personalised banking is reflected in AmOnline 3.0, a beacon of customisation that targets diverse customer segments. With an impressive 40% surge in new users by December 2022, the platform is powered

by AmBank’s e-KYC capabilities, driving new-tobank customer acquisition. AmBank has also encouraged employees to leverage emerging technologies such as augmented reality (AR) / virtual reality (VR) based gamification both for testing purposes and to help identify potential use-cases within retail banking. This bold move aims to create engaging digital content, enhancing client and employee interactions while enabling process automation.

Voice of the customer: A catalyst for optimising digital interactions Taking the pulse of customer sentiment is essential for any business, and AmBank has expertly integrated customer insights to inform its digital strategy. This includes real-time feedback on branch service quality, captured via unique QR codes in their extensive 170-branch network, leading to a significant 187% increase in positive responses. Furthermore, AmBank’s commitment to service excellence is reflected in initiatives such as the Amazing CX campaign. Leveraging AmOnline as an alternate survey tool and feedback platform, the Bank continues to foster customer recommendation and advocacy, solidifying its network of promoters

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Redefining convenience: Streamlining digital payment processes to facilitate efficiencies and customer choice With the pursuit of distinction at the core of its mission, AmBank has revolutionised payment processes. Offering seamless, quick payment experiences, the Bank has successfully diversified its revenue streams and seized growth opportunities, outpacing even its largest competitors. In particular, introducing Apple Pay presented a challenge considering the Bank had yet to embed tokenisation capabilities within its technology stack. However, since its launch the Bank was able to achieve its 35% + card provisioning and registered a 40% month-on-month AmBank Credit Card spend via Apple Pay. Furthermore, AmBank worked towards enhancing its DuitNow QR performance to 11s, second only to Maybank (by 1 second) reflecting the Bank’s commitment to elevating customer experience by leveraging its operational competencies despite the comparatively smaller technology spend. AmOnline mobile-based fund transfer transactions alone have recorded at 16% YoY growth in 2022 exceeding 37 million transactions. Understandably, the Bank considers maintaining a best-in-class payment banking experience as an essential pre-requisite for expanding digital engagements to include consumer financing and investments in helping customers meet their financial goals.

Fortifying digital offerings through strategic partnerships Strategic partnerships with online platforms, FinTech companies, and service providers have allowed AmBank to augment its digital offerings, strengthening client relationships. Among these alliances, its collaboration with Tabung Haji (Malaysia’s pilgrim fund), ASB (Malaysia’s largest mutual fund manager) and BonusLink (Malaysia’s largest loyalty reward program) stands out, providing customers with extensive, integrated services within the AmOnline platform.

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For instance, the strategic partnership between AmBank and Tabung Haji has enabled customers to link their Tabung Haji account and register for their Hajj pilgrimage all within the AmOnline platform as the Bank grows its Islamic customer base. Similarly, AmOnline is connected to ASNB allowing the Bank’s customers to either top-up their mutual funds and/or purchase new funds from the fund manager. In addition, AmOnline users can apply to enrol in the BonusLink’s loyalty programme while the 900,000 BonusLink members can commence their AmBank relationship through account opening. Moreover, as AmBank executes the various phases of its digital roadmap and rapidly progresses across its transformation journey it remains mindful of providing clients with an invigorating experience as demonstrated through its recent “Community Banking” approach that successfully embeds banking across various lifestyle scenarios. The collaboration with Bask Bear Coffee promises to reframe the traditional in-branch experience and prove to be a key differentiator between the Bank and its peers. AmBank’s intent is clear: to weave its digital services into the fabric of customers’ lives, organically and conveniently. AmBank continues to enhance its digital customer experience with a view to

“AmBank’s commitment to personalised banking is reflected in AmOnline 3.0, a beacon of customisation that targets diverse customer segments.”

expanding its competitive edge in Malaysia and it remains well placed to strengthening its digital interactions with customers while deepening main bank relationships. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has awarded AmBank with the prestigious titles of “Excellence in Next-Gen Customer Satisfaction – South East Asia”, “Outstanding Digital CX – Mobile Banking”, and a Highly Acclaimed “Outstanding Digital CX – Payments” at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023. AmBank remains a pioneering force, continuously enhancing its digital customer experience and asserting its competitive edge.

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Backbase Engagement Banking Platform: A unified platform for the customer-first era The global financial services landscape has undergone considerable digital transformation in recent times in response to new market entrants, evolving customer behaviour and changing socio-demographics. Customer journeys are being redefined and new banking service benchmarks have been developed with a view to ensuring frictionless and seamless interactions. The challenge for incumbents now is on devising customer engagements that are consistent across all touchpoints, while ensuring that service failures are minimised. It is within this backdrop that solutions provider, Backbase, has pioneered a people-first approach to financial services through its Engagement Banking Platform (EBP) materially elevating the customer experience and end-user journeys of clients. Given how quickly banking is changing, customer expectations for simple, instant and personalised experience necessitates a departure from the siloed channel-based approach adopted by most incumbent players towards a unified platform that can empower customers across their financial lifecycle.

Reimagining the future of banking to deliver holistic customer interactions The platform differentiation for the EBP is that it is built on open-source technology with one architecture and one code base and has helped banks unify their retail, business and wealth lines of business across the entire customer lifecyacle from digital onboarding, day to day digital banking, digital lending, 360-degree customer view for contact center backend support, and creating personalised marketing with hyper segmentation. The value EPB has brought to banks include reducing cost to serve and new acquisition costs while increasing retention and wallet share with the ability to accelerate time to market for new

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product, channel and feature launches. Essentially, banks have the option to leverage and optimise on pre-built customer journeys and features or build fully customise product features and UI/ UX unique to the bank’s requirements and local market needs to accelerate time to market. Indeed, this combination of adopt and accelerated build, has helped banks become 10x more efficient and customer-centric, increase speed to go to market by 60%, lower IT build costs by 33%, and lower channel maintenance costs by 90%. Moreover, the EBP is agnostic to systems of records and can seamlessly connect with existing or hybrid core banking systems, CRM and any third party or proprietary banking systems enabling innovation at scale for incumbent players

EBP facilitates Techcombank’s digitalfirst strategy for seamless banking experiences With 150+ banks and credit unions globally having chosen the Backbase EBP, Vietnam based Techcombank’s decision to opt for EBP in pursuit of accelerating the digitalisation of its retail and corporate omni-channel engagement is well justified. Techcombank’s leveraging of EBP to innovate and design new digital financial services experiences for its retail and corporate customers

has enabled the Bank to shorten new product development journeys. In addition, EBP’s open integration architecture where existing integrators and systems are able to function on one single platform, providing an omni-channel full customer life cycle has helped Techcombank create, manage, and optimise its end-to-end customer experience as it scales up its digital offerings as a digital-first bank. Today, Techcombank boasts an App Store app rating of 4.8 and a Google Play app rating of 4.7. “Techcombank is able to continuously create digital banking experience on the cutting edge as a result of the autonomous control and flexibility derived from Backbase’s Engagement Banking Platform,” Mukesh Pilania, Executive Vice President & Head of Digital Banking, Techcombank said. “The architecture built on a single codebase is clean and robust to enable our team to confidently customise user interface, create bespoke journeys, and deliver a synchronous experience across both digital front-end and employee back-end channels; at the same time, its pre-built journeys operate as accelerators for faster go-to-market”.

Backbase through its Engagement Banking Platform (EBP) is truly empowering financial institutions in accelerating their digital transformation and reconstructing their business model around the customer. Indeed, from customer onboarding, to servicing, loyalty and loan origination, the easily integrated platform with ready-to-go apps is materially improving every aspect of the customer experience. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has recognised Backbase for “Best Digital CX Partner – Retail Bank” distinction at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

Helping financial institutions scale through robust platform-as-aservice functions In 2022, Backbase further enhanced its platformas-a-service proposition by adding ‘fintechas-a-service’. Leveraging EBP, banks can now have access to additional pre-built connectors for payments, KYC, fraud & compliance, etc., without the hassle of going through extended procurement cycles and complex IT integration.

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“Backbase has pioneered a people-first approach to financial services through its Engagement Banking Platform (EBP) materially elevating the customer experience and end-user journeys of clients.”

Similarly, Backbase introduced ‘connectivity-as-aservice’, allowing banks to integrate their system of records. Furthermore, with the launch of ‘data-as-a-service’, banks can now aggregate data streams from core banking systems, CRM systems, and KYC. Importantly, this enables banks to harmonise data for customer graph creation and facilitates the use of data across the customer lifecycle for more informed decision-making. Backbase has also added ‘cloud-as-a-service’, establishing a full integration with Microsoft Azure. Its cloud infrastructure offers a combination of Azure, AI/ML, data-lake, and GitHub with Power BI, Office, and Dynamics embedded on the application layer.

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The future of EBP With digital transformation efforts across the years, banks are now looking at levelling up digital banking to not deliver standard features and requirements, but to create true omnichannel banking that offers modern and personalised customer engagements. EBP has been leveraged by not just large banks like Techcombank in Vietnam and HDFC in India, but also second and third tier disrupting banks like ABBANK and OCB in Vietnam. One of the core advantages of the EBP is in its ability to help banks of all sizes to gain access to modern, composable engagement banking platform technology to innovate and scale at pace, minimising dependency on the state of the core technology.

The Pressing Need for a Global Instant Payments Framework The financial sector is witnessing an increasing demand for instant payment (IP) services, a cry echoed globally and catalysed by shifting customer expectations for swift, convenient, and seamless fund transfers. The customer, whether an individual, a corporation, or a financial entity, anticipates a financial ecosystem where transactions are not bounded by geographical constraints or administrative delays. This necessity is further exemplified by the global shift towards a digital-first economy, where consumers empowered by digital platforms demand money mobility as a fundamental service from financial providers. Swift, a global member-owned cooperative and the world’s leading provider of secure financial messaging services, has recently embarked on an innovative journey, seeking to satisfy this demand by orchestrating a pilot project aiming to process instant cross-currency payments across different currency areas. With

an emphasis on providing end-to-end visibility of payment status through the integration of Iberpay’s instant transfer platform with Swift’s GPI tracker, the pilot project promises enhanced transaction transparency, a feature necessary in an age where information is of absolute importance.

“The completion of Swift’s pilot project signals a significant milestone towards achieving instantaneous global payments.”

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Swift GPI: A Pioneering Initiative in the Instant Payments Landscape Swift GPI (Global Payments Innovation) is fast emerging as a new standard in global payments, ensuring international transactions are executed with enhanced speed, traceability, and transparency. This initiative, stemming from collaborative efforts between Swift and the global banking community, addresses the challenges of contemporary cross-border payments and aspires to provide a robust solution to the industry’s needs. It aims to offer a transformed payments experience, enabled through digital tools that are both userfriendly and simple to set up. The completion of Swift’s pilot project signals a significant milestone towards achieving instantaneous global payments. Notably, leading Spanish banks, such as BBVA, Santander, and CaixaBank1, have joined forces with Swift and payment processor Iberpay to pioneer the first test of this transformative service in Europe. The trial phase involved actual payments from banks in varied currency areas, like Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and the UK, using the Swift GPI Instant service. These transactions were executed and settled promptly, with the credited amount reaching the ultimate beneficiary’s account within seconds.

Paytech Players: A Possible Solution to Global Payment Challenges? While Swift’s pilot project showcases a tangible stride towards harmonising global payments, it simultaneously casts a spotlight on the pervasive challenges and intricacies embedded within the current global payment ecosystem. In light of the existing challenges, it is evident that Paytech players and FinTech issuers hold a promising potential to drive further innovations in the global payment landscape. FinTechs offering multiple instant payment methods have been shown to provide smoother experiences, which suggests that the integration of technology and finance could be pivotal in addressing the aforementioned challenges in the payment ecosystem. However, the journey is not without its own set of hurdles.

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A key obstacle lies in the capability of FinTech issuers to deliver on the promise of instant payments. While the promise is alluring, fintech companies continue to grapple with ensuring completely reliable and smooth fund transfers. This situation is amplified by a myriad of factors including security challenges, regulatory compliance, and adapting to legacy infrastructures, which have proven to be substantial barriers to modernising payment systems. Moreover, the quest for instant, global payments has brought to light new concerns, primarily surrounding security and compliance. Instant payments could potentially spur instant fraud, posing a crucial challenge for banks to detect and mitigate fraudulent activities within a significantly reduced time frame, whilst ensuring adherence to rigorous anti-fraud regulations and compliance guidelines. The incorporation of technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, and behavioural analytics is becoming increasingly critical for banks to automate processes and detect and prevent fraudulent transactions in real time.

Envisioning a Future of Seamless Global Transactions The pursuit of a seamless global instant payments network is undeniably complex, intertwining technological, regulatory, and operational threads into a web that seeks to blanket the global financial landscape. Swift, with its GPI initiative, has sown the first seeds, demonstrating the feasibility and potential benefits of such a system.

“Paytech players and FinTech issuers hold a promising potential to drive further innovations in the global payment landscape.”

Meanwhile, the Paytech sector, despite its challenges, provides a glimmer of innovative possibilities, indicating that a collaborative approach, which harnesses the strengths of traditional financial institutions, technological innovations, and regulatory bodies, may indeed pave the way towards realising the dream of instant global payments. As various nations embark on their journeys

towards instituting instant payments, and financial entities such as central banks explore possibilities like cross-border instant payments via mobile phones, the collective endeavours of the global financial community are progressively sketching the contours of a future where the borders that once delineated financial transactions slowly begin to blur, heralding a new era of global financial interoperability and cohesion.

1 - BBVA collaborates in the first international instant payment pilot, led by Iberpay and Swift - BBVA

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Standard Chartered Bank: Fundamentally transforming digital CX in wealth management and bancassurance In response to growing the needs of the affluent and emerging affluent customer base in its core markets, Standard Chartered Bank initiated a series of market leading initiatives to better serve its wealth’s customers. Indeed, the Bank has systematically redesigned engagement models and crafted unique client journeys to provide greater value and convenience for customers. This proved to be a singular customer-centric strategy in the backdrop of a receding pandemic that had redefined customer expectations with wealth managers accelerating their digital transformation and product innovation efforts. Digitising the wealth management journey has reinforced frontline capabilities In this regard, Standard Chartered Bank has proactively prioritised to scale the Bank’s digital platform capabilities. Led by Sumeet Bhambri, Global Head, Advisory and Managed Investments, Wealth Management, the primary objective is to provide clients with a superior and personalised experience on an end-to-end basis. With this priority in mind, the Bank has maintained a mobile-first channel focus. The roll-out of myWealth Advisor in Singapore is proof of this. It is fully integrated with backend platforms such as Triple A Plus and CEMS, and other client-facing systems including MyRM, along with other capital market products and trading systems. Importantly, the Bank’s Relationship Managers (RMs) are now well positioned to deliver complete and holistic advisory solutions to clients through one-click transactions executed digitally. The myWealth Advisor platform facilitates RM engagements by presenting comprehensive portfolio construction, simulation and performance

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information tailored to client goals and preferences aiding the portfolio review discussions. It is further augmented with personalised and actionable investment insights for a seamless and efficient exchange between the RM and client. Moreover, the entire client journey is based on a digital cobrowsing experience delivered to the client by the RM in a simple and intuitive manner. Similarly, the buy/sell orders recommended on the myWealth Advisor platform are auto populated on Triple A Plus ensuring that the trades are suitable and in compliance with applicable regulation and SC policies. RMs can also leverage myRM to source client approvals on digital trades needed for order execution. Throughout each step of the trade lifecycle required details are entered only once. In Singapore, SC has recorded a 78% client adoption for myRM with 60% of total instructions being submitted via the platform. In addition, the Bank’s recent launch of direct to client equities trading capabilities powered by cloud technology infrastructure, has facilitated access to global financial markets for wealth customers in

Malaysia and UAE in 2022. This has simplified both the client and RM user journey in the order taking process and automated pre-trade check validation. These key initiatives are effective in empowering the Bank’s RMs by reducing the administrative workload allowing them to focus on delivering quality advice faster and more consistently to clients in response to changing market opportunities.

Online Equity Trading Platform facilitates a scalable and streamlined servicing model A closer examination of SC’s Online Equity Trading Platform indicates the incorporation of extensive market research tools in conjunction with an optimised UI/UX to enable access to up to 16 different stock exchanges across 10 markets in Asia Pacific, Europe and North America. Importantly, the Platform embedded within the Online Equity Trading Global Stack provides clients with added convenience through integration into SC’s Internet and Mobile Banking applications. SC has leveraged its HKOE platform to develop the Online Equity Trading Global Stack, developing a common technology stack integrated with cloud services that can be quickly deployed across different geographies benefitting from a faster time to-market and reduced maintenance costs. This streamlined customer servicing model also encompasses back-office functionalities that can be utilised by SC call centres, dealing desks, product and operations teams. Ultimately, users have benefitted from a myriad of features that facilitate investment decision-making and a smoother trading experience.

Full STP capabilities of Structured Notes for PI clients set new servicing standard Likewise, the Bank has elevated client experience through its innovation covering pricing, order management and post-sales lifecycle management of structured products. Specifically, in 2022 Standard Chartered Bank (HK) introduced full STP capability on structured note products for professional investors (PI) that includes pre-trade

Sumeet Bhambri Global Head, Advisory and Managed Investments, Wealth Management

leveraged purchasing power checks. RMs are geared to execute client requests near-instantaneously, within a few clicks, compared with the pre-launch minimum 45-minute time-period required for processing requests. Indeed, this critical breakthrough in structured product servicing addresses long unmet needs of sophisticated PI clients as the Bank’s utilisation of STP term sheets and order management systems in conjunction with post-trade lifecycle management service has augmented structured product servicing. For SC this has translated to easier fulfillment of client wealth management needs while positioning the Bank as an innovative provider of structured products. The Bank has also recorded a significant 250% increase in its structured notes business to PI clients in HK.

Banca Omni (myInsure) journeys enable clients to address simple insurance needs Another critical component of SC’s extended portfolio of wealth management services includes its delivery of an omnichannel myInsure experience

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Clients are conveniently placed by using the doit-yourself (DIY), Financial Needs Analysis (FNA) and Transaction module on SC Mobile and are not dependent on insurance provider systems that can potentially lead to disparate customer journeys. Furthermore, the integrated journey transforms the entire client engagement, which is no longer dependent on RMs being the initiators of insurance conversations. The DIY journey enables a seamless client interaction during product purchase and ease of access in sourcing relevant information during review of the insurance portfolio. Currently deployed in the Singapore, Hong Kong and China markets, the myInsure offering delivers an efficient client experience and offers much needed flexibility in purchasing insurance. Gautam Duggal Global Head, Bancassurance

that integrates the Bank’s different capabilities to form a seamless and well-crafted unified journey. From initiation, product recommendation, application and submission, SC’s use of the latest schemes, data models and system integrations are designed to reduce existing customer pain points and enhance offerings making provision of bespoke client insurance solutions feasible. According to Gautam Duggal, Global Head, Bancassurance, this forms an integral part of the Bank’s overall efforts in strengthening frontline efforts in delivering holistic advice to clients for wealth preservation and growth as they pursue various lifegoals. Moreover, the omnichannel capabilities enable the Bank to extend an overarching solution to customers that is no longer reliant on face-to-face interaction or use of the insurance partner platform with almost 80% of insurance products being digitally available. Certainly, myInsure’s unique advantage is its contribution towards a 360˚ conversation covering all life goals with the client and being able to take informed decisions at key stages during the planning process. This makes the entire engagement less transaction driven and aids the Bank to stay ahead of any changing requirements.

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China Banca’s remote sale facility augments SC’s insurance distribution penetration Likewise, Standard Chartered Bank China’s launch of remote sales features in 2022 has deepened its outreach with customers in a key market particularly during the peak of the pandemic. The remote sales offering being predicated on a “digitalfirst” approach has consolidated the Bank’s digital interactions delivering clients an experience that is superior to branch based engagements. Effectively, SC China makes use of enhancements such as e-sign, fulfillments, closure of sale with a possibility of cross-sell based on client needs leveraging the use of a secure and resilient platform. The Bank is carefully managing call length and volumes, while testing for issues such as video lagging, blurry content and network drops etc. to ensure that clients are able to make full use of the interaction with their designated RM. Currently, more than 200 RMs are registered to use the remote sales channel service facilitating clients with time savings of 30 minutes per interaction compared with branch based engagements. From a business perspective, the Banca team in China has successfully engaged with more than 100 clients have contributed to an annual premium equivalent (APE) of RMB 40 million routed through remote channels in 2022.

Clearly, Standard Chartered Bank through its continued investments in new platforms and digital enhancements, has truly demonstrated superior digital CX for clients seeking wealth and bancassurance products. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has duly recognised Standard Chartered Bank for “Best Wealth Manager – Digitally Empowering RMs”, “Outstanding Innovation in Digital CX – Equities”, “Outstanding in Digital CX – Structured Products”, “Outstanding Digital CX – Life Insurance”, “Outstanding Digital CX Transformation in Insurance” and a Highly Acclaimed “Outstanding Transformation in Digital CX by a Wealth Manager” distinction at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

“Standard Chartered Bank through its continued investments in new platforms and digital enhancements, has truly demonstrated superior digital CX for clients seeking wealth and bancassurance products.”

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Citi transforming digital engagement through the CitiManager® App and CitiDirect® platform The ability to truly empower commercial clients with the requisite tools in being able to transact whenever, wherever and however they want has been an ongoing challenge for many financial institutions. This became more pronounced during the transition to the post-pandemic period, where Covid-19 restrictions eased and business normalcy was restored. commercial clients were seeking a single-entry point digital platform to provide a comprehensive view of their banking relationships across markets, products and solutions.

Image: 4H4 PH / Shutterstock.com

Importantly, both governments and corporate entities alike needed requisite visibility on business expenses, particularly travel spend, for more seamless and effective cost management. Likewise,

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Citi responded proactively through enhancements via its CitiManager® App and CitiDirect® platform that has facilitated corporate cardholders with managing their cards on-the-go and enabled a one-click access to commercial clients for global transaction capabilities using an intuitive and usercentric workflow respectively. Fundamentally, the CitiManager® App has introduced customer-focused features to drive convenience and self-service for clients facilitating its users through new app display settings, faster activation via the card scanner functionality and easier reconciliation through PDF statements. Similarly, the CitiDirect® platform allows users to manage accounts, payments, receivables, liquidity, trade, foreign exchange and reporting globally.

Leveraging the “Voice of the Customer” and in-app CitiManager® feedback to build competencies Clearly, the Bank considers delivering outstanding customer experience central to ensuring continued client engagement and Citi sourced critical insights and feedback from both its annual “Voice of the Customer” survey and in-app response mechanism to better gauge client sentiment. Importantly, the survey provided valuable inputs to help ensure that existing product and service portfolios meet client needs and expectations, while also pointing towards areas of improvement. Assessing all aspects of the relationship from sales, services to channel interaction, Citi was able to finetune its commercial card proposition to garner a 76% overall customer satisfaction rating in the most recent “Voice of the Customer” survey. Likewise, the in-app feedback mechanism provided a direct channel of communication between commercial cardholders and product managers in prioritising and optimising required improvements based on client needs. Resultingly, the in-app responses reinforced by extensive qualitative feedback resulted in enhancements that have helped lift the CitiManager® App store ratings from an average of 2.2 to 4.6 cumulatively across both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Moreover, the number of unique visitors on the CitiManager® App has increased by more than 150% within the preceding eighteen months due to the simplification of key journeys and addition of new features emphasising both efficiency and ease of use. The Bank remains committed to harnessing “Voice of the Customer” initiatives in its product design and development aimed at leading to improved customer satisfaction and digital usage.

Simplifying crucial phases of the customer journey to facilitate selfservice Citi focused on three key aspects of the cardholder lifecycle to help ensure that the CitiManager® App remained top of mind as the channel of choice for commercial clients. The cardholder lifecycle begins with activation and a card scan function is now offered, facilitating users to simply scan their cards, without having to manually enter their 16-digit card number. This is expected to reduce the likelihood of potential errors and provide additional convenience to the client by having the card operational as soon as possible. The next phase of the customer lifecycle comprises transactions, with the Bank changing its definition of recent transaction from the latest billing period to include the last three months of activity. Importantly, having visibility of these last three months of transactions can make fraud detection easier given the consolidated view of all recent activity and potential for streamlined recordkeeping across multiple periods. Likewise, the last stage in the cardholder lifecycle is centred on expense management, where customers can download, export and upload their PDF statements directly to their expense management provider. Collectively, these new features are expected to minimise fallout rates, provide much needed transparency on card activity and enable faster expense account reconciliation. Citi is prudently consolidating its digital customer engagements with its commercial cards being made available through 100% straight-through-processing (STP). Currently, 69% of its active commercial

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cardholders are digitally active and registered for online access to manage their card through the web or app. Furthermore, card activation, which has been a key factor in driving call volumes to the Bank’s service centres, is now recording a significant drop and this type of inquiry is no longer a top-10 call driver.

Delivering core transaction services seamlessly for a differentiated digital experience Furthermore, Citi has continually enhanced its CitiDirect® platform to extend its completely digitised portfolio of transaction solutions across commercial customer segments, thereby helping to reduce potential friction in transaction processing and enabling corporate treasurers to fully leverage its global network. Clearly, the evolving needs of treasurers mandate integrated banking solutions that provide the requisite transparency and control for complete optimisation of working capital, liquidity and cash management to power business growth is further augmented by CitiDirect’s® interoperability with CitiConnect®.

Photo by Hunters Race on Unsplash

In addition, it is the CitiDirect’s® usability and engaging design that connects with users across different geographies and from within institutional hierarchies for an intuitive and easy

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to navigate platform. This has directly contributed to an increase in digitally based transactions and proportion of digitally active users that are benefitting from the platform’s simplified journeys. Moreover, access to data driven insights such as Payment Insights helps inform strategic business decision making, with clients utilising the myriad of self-service features for anytime and anywhere customised connectivity. The convenience and improved time saving is equally reflected through the CitiDirect® digital onboarding that has eased the account opening process online, facilitating faster servicing and requiring less documentation. In terms of transaction safety, CitiDirect® is embedded with various identity solutions to help provide the necessary security credentials and biometric authentication enabling clients to transact with confidence. Certainly, Citi has methodically developed a robust digital ecosystem, comprising the CitiManager® App and CitiDirect® platform, which is designed to be aligned with customer needs and central to facilitating the client’s digital interactions with the Bank. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has recognised Citi for the “World’s Best Transaction Bank for Digital CX” and “Outstanding Digital CX – Bank Cards” at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

“The number of unique visitors on the CitiManager® App has increased by more than 150% within the preceding eighteen months due to the simplification of key journeys and addition of new features emphasising both efficiency and ease of use.”

HSBC HK: Leading the transformation in mobile banking through customer-centricity Since its launch in 2016, the HSBC HK App’s vision is to make banking services accessible at the palm of the customer. Today, within a span of seven years, HSBC has become the largest digital bank in Hong Kong, acquiring over 2 million active users (i.e. 1 in every 3 Hong Kong residents are using HSBC HK App). With the aim of being the ‘bank in your pocket’, the HSBC HK App is continually pushing boundaries having introduced nearly 200 enhancements and features in 2022 alone, including several first-in-market features. The Bank’s use of the E-A-S-Y framework has helped accelerate its digital progression with a data-led 360-degree Customer Life Cycle Management (CLCM), ensuring that the four key customer life stages are well managed with data

analytics. In particular, the CLCM strategy has helped maximise customer engagement by optimising the right contact with the right message to the right customer at the right time.

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A comprehensive ecosystem that enables an all-digital experience to customers Certainly, HSBC HK is broadening digital inclusivity by enabling the access of digital banking services for the elderly and digital novice cohorts. Initiatives such as the HSBC HK App – Lite Mode, Digital Ambassadors and Digital Academy have all contributed to ensuring that customers of all age groups can avail and use respective banking services on-the-go. Similarly, as a local bank with an increasingly international client base, HSBC HK has brought digital banking convenience to all customers, with digital account opening journey now made possible for both local and international customers. New domestic customers can bank, spend and invest all within 12 minutes with over 60% of customers being onboarded through the HSBC HK App. Likewise, eligible International customer can open Hong Kong account with passport on app in just 10 minutes! The Bank has also proven to be considerably agile throughout the pandemic, with a mobile cheque deposit service, one of the first-in-market initiative to support customers to bank from home easily. HSBC HK also extended its mobile cash withdrawal service to mainland China through the UnionPay QR Code Withdrawal service, thereby facilitating clients at both HSBC and non-HSBC group ATMs. Fundamentally, this burgeoning digital ecosystem is key to deliver the CLCM strategy, given that communications and digital capabilities have been designed to empower customers and support banking needs on a 24/7 basis and throughout their life stages in a seamless and secure manner.

Automation and Big Data drives hyperpersonalisation customer engagement HSBC HK has prudently deployed data analytics, powered by artificial intelligence to drive hyperpersonalisation element in products & service. It is a core component of the Bank’s CLCM strategy ensuring that a customer-centric experience is maintained consistently. Since acquisition, the

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“HSBC HK is broadening digital inclusivity by enabling the access of digital banking services for the elderly and digital novice cohorts.” insight-led customer selection engine is already monitoring customer from Day 0 through behaviour signal detection. With over 1 million behaviour signals are processed daily to identify the requisite opportunity, the engine provides real-time unique persona of each customer to ensure that the Bank can timely identify the best-fit solutions to clients. To capture customer engagement from activating their account, another hyper-personalised communications deployment engine, which makes more than 2 million daily communication decisions, enables the Bank to deliver automated personalised messages. Content, tone and voice are all personalised based on customer profile. This holistic approach has successfully driven every one out of four New-to-bank customers taking HSBC as their primary bank in first 3 months. With CLCM strategy embedding data analytics in all customer touchpoints and journeys, there is a strong foundation for HSBC HK to further deepen customer relationship. The success of integration between Digital and CLCM is proven with over 95% transactions are conducted digitally in 2022, a testament of digital banking experience becoming excellent with data analytics. Artificial Intelligence also plays a crucial part in retaining our customers proactively with 24/7 detection. Automated Quality Management (AQM) - an AI voice-to-text cloud-based system elevates customer sales experience by incorporating natural language understanding. Importantly, it can proactively identify potential customers’ disengagement during their calls and alert staff

for follow-up actions, preventing service failures and ensuring that customer experience standards are maintained so that the overall relationship is strengthened.

The one and only out-of-the-Bank experience Furthermore, HSBC HK has also bridged its customer’s financial wellbeing with physical wellness as it understand the close correlation in customers’ life. Well+, the first health and wellness programme that has been fully integrated into the banking app, has enabled customers to improve their financial, physical and mental wellness in a fun and rewarding manner by completing activities and being rewarded for their achievements. The gamified experience has also resulted in driving customer engagement higher and consolidating bank loyalty.

In addition, the Bank has embraced the new technology that it gave away 1,000 non-tradable NFT art souvenirs among clients who had strong interest in digital assets. Similarly, the Sandbox land acquisition in the Metaverse also proved to be groundbreaking with HSBC HK delivering on its commitment towards interactive and immersive experiences for its customers. DuoVerse Music Show, a 2023 highlight event which is the firstever Metaverse and real-world show being held simultaneously truly elevating digitalisation to the next level.

On the forefront of cyber security and fraud prevention Likewise, HSBC HK has also taken a proactive approach in responding to the evolving cyber threat landscape that is becoming increasingly complex and diverse. According to the HSBC

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FinFit study 2022, customers have increased awareness and knowledge in handling with cybersecurity and fraud (up +2 points from the 2021 study) through the Bank’s extensive financial security education and range of enhanced fraud prevention features. HSBC HK is striving to ensure that its customers cultivate healthy and secure digital banking habits with eDM and social media communication in place to give tips on avoiding and/or responding to potential scam situations.

Next stop / Building the future - #1 Fintech Bank HSBC HK is deftly venturing into the new digital space through the use of Open API. In particular, HSBC’s digital wallet, PayMe leverages open architecture for the benefit of customers and merchants enabling enhanced connectivity and facilitating a seamless payment and transfer journey for P2P and P2M transactions. PayMe has been widely used in the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s Faster Payment Service (FPS), the Hong Kong government’s Consumption Voucher Scheme and eLaisee transactions. Likewise, as an advocate of HKSAR Government’s Smart City Blueprint the Bank has engaged in strategic partnerships with Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) and local non-governmental organisations (NGO) as means to nurture future talent. Importantly, HSBC is driving fintech development by organising knowledge sharing and capacity building activities at HKBU. Moreover, through the HSBC Hong Kong Community Partnership Programme and Hongkong Bank Foundation it has supported NGOs on a range of social initiatives that also include advancing digital inclusion. Fundamentally, HSBC HK’s success is a joint effort driven by the dedication and commitment of all business units to ensure that it becomes

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the everyday banking application in line with today’s modern UI/UX needs. The HSBC HK App is well positioned and in-sync with the Bank’s comprehensive engagement channels, which are delivering well-designed and personalised communications leveraging big data and automation. Driven by the CLCM strategy, HSBC customers can now “see” and “feel” the power of data analytics through a seamless and personalised experience. The bank will continue to transform, focusing on customer-centric engagements. It is holistically catering to client needs across different customer lifecycle stages, from acquisition to retention, and providing them with next-bestactions in a timely manner. Clearly, in the 21st century, HSBC HK App is charting new pathways in predictive banking services, thinking and taking action before being prompted by its 2 million active users that comprise 1/3rd of the Hong Kong population. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has recognised HSBC HK “World’s Best Retail Bank for Digital CX” and “Outstanding Digital CX Strategy – Overall” distinction at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

“The Bank’s use of the E-A-S-Y framework has helped accelerate its digital progression with a data-led 360-degree Customer Life Cycle Management (CLCM) strategy.”

Mashreq’s Digital Frontier: Steering Innovation in Middle East/ Africa’s Banking Landscape In an era where client experience reigns supreme, Mashreq, one of the leading financial institutions in the Middle East and Africa (MENA) region, stands resolute in its commitment to elevate the landscape of corporate and institutional banking services. Mashreq, a pioneer in innovation, has embarked on a remarkable journey to revolutionise and strengthen its corporate, investment banking and international banking divisions. This transformation is driven by their wholesale digital studio, a strategic initiative introduced in the early months of 2020, that seeks to enable customer success and sustainable growth for the bank through four key pillars: enhancing customer experience, increasing revenue, managing risks, and improving operational efficiency. This is achieved by following four fundamental principles: fostering collaboration across the entire bank, instilling a winning mindset in their employees, adopting an agile operating model, and embracing a new approach to technology. At the esteemed Middle East & Africa Innovation Awards 2023, organised by The Digital Banker, Mashreq’s dedication to innovation and operational excellence received universal acclaim. The bank proudly won five accolades: Best Data Analytics Initiative, Outstanding Use of Technology by a Transaction Bank, Outstanding Account Opening and Onboarding Initiative, Outstanding Achievement in Operational Risk Management in the Middle East/Africa, and Best Automation Initiative. Nirav Patel, Managing Director of The Digital Banker, remarked, “Mashreq’s commitment to enhancing client experience, especially in the corporate banking landscape, is truly unparalleled. Their forward-thinking initiatives in data analytics, operational risk management, and automation reflect a vision that is not only innovative but also deeply aligned with the evolving needs of the banking ecosystem in the region.”

PULSE – The Wholesale Digital Studio’s Flagship Innovation Platform Mashreq’s Wholesale Digital Studio boasts a pioneering legacy through its flagship innovation platform, PULSE. This cutting-edge platform, built by Bankers for Bankers seamlessly integrates emerging technologies like AI/ML, NLP, Graph Analytics, Cloud, and CRM to craft captivating digital experiences. Amith Rajan, Head, Wholesale Digital Studio, Mashreq & NeoVentures, said “Our products represent the evolution of our commitment to innovation as we bring a paradigm shift in Corporate & Institutional Banking. At Mashreq, we have redefined the role of Relationship Managers, empowering them with cutting-edge tools such as graph analytics to uncover intricate client connections and multiple AI/ML models to identify revenue generating opportunities, improve CX & risk management. Furthermore, by replacing 20+ applications, including our OCR/NLP document vault, we have revolutionised how we operate.”

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“As a leader in the Middle East and African banking industry, Mashreq is recognised for its commitment to risk management, automation, and data analytics. Utilising state-ofthe-art technology and a single client management platform, it sets the standard for other banks to follow.” Emphasis on Analytics, Automation, and Ecosystem Collaboration Mashreq prioritises the integration of automation and analytics, as this is the basis for the majority of the solutions that come out of its Wholesale Digital Studio. They have developed ground-breaking, internationally recognised programs like “Personas Insights” and “Curated News” to improve the effectiveness and productivity of Relationship Managers (RM).

MASHREQ group

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Amith Rajan, Head, Wholesale Digital Studio Mashreq & NeoVentures

By offering the first “100% Digital onboarding & KYC” solution in the region for large corporates, by leveraging technologies like “Electronic Face Recognition” and “E-KYC.” Mashreq has demonstrated its dedication to providing exceptional customer service. Mashreq is the founding member of the DIFC Launchpad, where they introduced NeoVentures, a corporate venture fund. NeoVentures looks to commercialise the Banks in-house digital platforms, explore partnership and investment opportunities with Fin-Techs and co-create cutting-edge digital solutions with our clients. When it comes to working together and maximising the potential of the fintech and startup environment, Mashreq doesn’t cut any corners. Additionally, Mashreq’s sponsorship and participation in the Dubai Fintech Summit 2023 & Expand North Star (GITEX) 2023 is part of their ongoing outreach to the Fin-Tech ecosystem to drive innovation and foster growth.

Beyond the Digits: Exploring the Global Fintech Funding Slowdown Navigating through the choppy waters of global economic downturns, the fintech sector, once a sanctuary of investment and burgeoning innovation, now grapples with substantial funding dilemmas. The first half of 2023 cast a complex shadow over global fintech investment, revealing a scenario mixed with both sturdy resilience and apparent vulnerability amidst prevailing economic trials. According to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, the sector endured a stark 49% plunge in funding, year over year, culminating in a total of $23 billion1. Additionally, peering beneath the impressive façade of a 55% quarter-over-quarter surge in funding during Q1’23, which amounted to a significant $15B, the reality is somewhat more sobering. Excluding Stripe’s formidable $6.5B round, the broader funding landscape reveals a 12% downturn, highlighting the nuanced challenges faced by the sector2.

What is Contributing to Investor Caution in Funding and Why the Dip? Several underpinning elements have established a foundation for a cautious, and notably lukewarm, investor approach to fintech. The economic slowdown, pervaded by high inflation and cash flow constraints, has been instrumental in moderating what was once a fervent investment landscape. Especially in the first half of a recent year, the deal count showcased a notable drop from the same period in the previous year, depicting a tangible deceleration in investor zeal. Simultaneous recessionary trends in critical global economies, such as Europe, the US, and China, further intensified by geopolitical unrest and inflation that has boosted Central Bank base rates to levels unseen since the 2008 Financial Crisis, have undeniably sown seeds of hesitancy in the market. In an environment where inflation remains

unabated and interest rates reach peaks not witnessed in a generation, the notion of a rapid, V-shaped recovery appears increasingly vague. A discernible anxiety pervades the market, stemming from the unbridled inflation in certain western economies and historically high interest rates. Both public and private markets have witnessed a deceleration in investment flows towards smaller fintechs and incumbent asset managers across diverse asset classes, spanning from public market assets to alternative ones.

In Market Focus: UK The UK, a hub for fintech innovation and investment, finds itself navigating through notable funding challenges. In the initial half of 2023, fintech funding in the UK experienced a 37% slump, securing $2.9 billion, compared to the latter part of the previous year. This situation is particularly striking considering the UK continues to assert itself as a significant force in the global fintech sphere, attracting more investment in fintech than all of Europe. The UK scenario encapsulates a mirror reflecting global trends - with London grasping 91% of all capital invested into UK Fintech in the initial half of the year. The figures, albeit not surprising, underscore the contrast between the present and the record first quarter of 20223, which witnessed an influx of venture capital.

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“The UK, a hub for fintech innovation and investment, finds itself navigating through notable funding challenges. In the initial half of 2023, fintech funding in the UK encountered a noticeable decline.”

Is This Reversible? The fintech sector, although currently traversing a somewhat treacherous path, is not devoid of hope or potential for reversal. Despite the prevailing challenges, established fintech firms have showcased a remarkable capacity to not only survive but to thrive amidst the economic tumult, capitalising on innovative solutions and adaptive strategies to seize market opportunities. Even in the UK, where the fintech investment landscape has palpably slowed, the capital invested in H1 2023 surpassed pre-pandemic levels. As the sector propels forward into the latter half of 2023 and beyond, the resilience of fintech becomes all the more pivotal. Established firms and startups alike pivot towards streamlined operations and innovative solutions as a means to navigate the intricate web of challenges posed by the economic

context. The emergence of generative AI as a defining factor in the next phase of fintech, linking the sector with climate tech and clean tech to address truly global issues, stands as a testament to the adaptability and innovative spirit of fintech. Investors and startups will cast a discerning eye towards the second half of 2023, seeking indicators of economic recovery and a mitigation of inflation rates, to decipher the future trajectory of fintech investment into 2024 and beyond. The coming quarters will undoubtedly reveal more about whether the fintech sector can rekindle the vigorous growth it has been known for or whether it will recalibrate to a new normal, characterised by cautious, methodical investment and a focus on sustainable, long-term growth amidst economic uncertainties.

1 - Global fintech funding nearly halves to $23 billion in H1 2023 – S&P Global Market Intelligence 2 - The State of Fintech in 5 charts: Funding rebounds due to Stripe, while deals continue to fall in Q1’23 – CB Insights 3 - H1 2023 FinTech Investment Landscape – Innovate Finance

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SCB Malaysia: Revolutionising card payments for the emerging affluent As business normalcy resumed and travel restrictions eased following the pandemic, SCB Malaysia (SC) prudently leveraged its core engagements, particularly with the affluent customer segment to launch a series of targeted propositions addressing their financial needs. Specifically, the Bank identified an opportunity to support the lifestyle goals of the growing emerging affluent customer base that is essentially defined by its proclivity for international travel, global connectedness and digital savvy. JumpStart Debit Card-i as the card of choice for travellers and online shoppers Enter the JumpStart Debit Card-i, designed to address the unique needs of this cohort by providing cost savings on both overseas spend and cash withdrawal, while incentivising cardholders with attractive rewards on online spend. SC has

made the card available for customers aged 18 and above, facilitating card usage by eliminating FX mark ups and withdrawal fees on transactions conducted abroad. The zero FX markups make the offer especially appealing enabling the Bank to compete with fintech startups that are offering relatively

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similar card propositions built around overseas transactions. Indeed, SC’s distinct competitive advantage remains its larger banking infrastructure and global network that complements client accessibility to a diverse portfolio of services. Moreover, the card’s attractive cashback rate of 5% on online spend is applicable at most e-commerce platforms, provided a simple monthly minimum requirement is attained. This has uniquely placed JumpStart ahead of comparable travel card solutions in the marketplace, empowering cardholders to initiate local bank transfers and international remittances, while availing waiver of domestic MEPS (local interbank network service provider) ATM withdrawal fees.

Driving new client acquisition and card spend augmented by digital solutions Importantly, clients interested in the card can apply via the SC Mobile Banking App that incorporates e-KYC capabilities, thereby facilitating digital account opening. This has enabled the Bank to provide a more seamless customer onboarding journey, with one-third of all digital account openings comprising JumpStart alone. Furthermore, digital card management functions are also available through the SC Mobile Banking App. These include enhanced security features with convenient options for the cardholder to temporarily block their debit card as needed. It is certainly reassuring for clients who are responding by increasing their spend via the debit card, particularly in card-not-present transactions.

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“SCB Malaysia is consolidating its relationship with the emerging affluent customer segment through the JumpStart Debit Card-i proposition that directly caters to its unique lifestyle needs.” Certainly, while JumpStart is still in the early growth stage of its product lifecycle, it will continue to contribute to more digital account openings by clients and emerge as a top-of-wallet card driving customer loyalty and brand affinity. Likewise, the build-up of debit card-based transaction spend will reinforce the broader push towards a cashless payments landscape as envisaged by stakeholders within the country. Effectively, SCB Malaysia is consolidating its relationship with the emerging affluent customer segment through the JumpStart Debit Card-i proposition that directly caters to its unique lifestyle needs. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has recognised Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia for a Highly Acclaimed “Outstanding Digital CX – Bank Cards” distinction at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

MONIX’s F.I.R.E. Ecosystem Strategy Drives Expansion of Digital Nano Loans FINNIX to the Underbanked in Thailand The financial services landscape in South-East Asia continues to undergo significant transformation as digitisation by incumbent banks and new market entrants fundamentally disrupt conventional business models in response to evolving consumer behaviour and changing socio-demographics. Enter MONIX, a joint-venture fintech startup between Thailand’s SCBX and China’s Abakus Group, and its launch of the FINNIX digital lending financial platform designed to enable financial access and advance financial inclusion in Thailand. To facilitate the 100% digital lending solution, MONIX has developed the F.I.R.E. (Finance, Intel, Reward, Empowerment) Ecosystem strategy. This strategy helps extend digitally-based nano loans to underbanked customer segments in Thailand who would otherwise be excluded from receiving financing within the traditional financial system. Built with speed, convenience, and innovation in mind, FINNIX offers nano loans in just five minutes, without the need for cumbersome paperwork, collateral, and guarantors.

MONIX’s Efficient Digital Lending Platform Resonates with Customers Importantly, through the deployment of e-KYC, FINNIX Score, and advanced analytics capabilities, MONIX has successfully disbursed over THB 19 billion in loans while engaging with over 740,000 customers via the FINNIX platform. With a customer satisfaction rating exceeding 80% and an App Store and Google Play rating of 4.8 and 4.6, respectively, the FINNIX App has gained traction with the underbanked customer segment. Customers find value in its human-centric design and ease of use, contributing to the over 10 million app downloads.

Moreover, the entire digital lending experience for the underbanked, starting from onboarding powered by identity verification to loan disbursement, is designed with a focus on customer empowerment. Our customer journey is a super easy process, starting with e-KYC. It follows a 3-step process that does not require manual document submission. This is an opportunity for everyone, even those whose mobile phones have below-par camera performance. The platform is augmented to strengthen customer acquisition efforts through a fast and secure digital onboarding journey for new customers, while leveraging cloud services to ensure the reliability and scalability of the infrastructure supporting loan administration efforts.

FINNIX Credit Report Shapes Client Experience to Drive Responsible Credit Behaviour Likewise, the FINNIX platform has incorporated new features to better serve its targeted underbanked customer segment. The humanised FINNIX Credit Report provides an assessment of a user’s creditworthiness, examining both their ability and willingness to meet loan repayments.

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In addition, a FINNIX Score is generated based on the client’s relevant personal and financial information, which helps inform financial behaviour. The platform also provides additional guidance to customers on steps for credit improvement, thereby contributing to responsible credit behaviour. MONIX considers the FINNIX Credit Report as an essential tool for assisting borrowers in understanding their own financial health and establishing credit. It is also intended to promote greater fiscal responsibility among customers while minimising wealth disparities in the country. Furthermore, the in-app gamification helps customers build financial discipline, allowing them to maintain credit scores, which contributes to the app’s low bad debt rate. Moreover, the streamlined loan application process, access to real-time credit performance tracking, and AI-enabled underwriting models for real-time personalised loan offers are resonating with users, while it incentivises those users with good credit behaviour. Clearly, customers have responded positively, as the percentage of digitally active users has increased by 32% YoY.

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Advancing Literacy and Awareness to Promote Financial Freedom Another critical component of MONIX’s aspirational vision of creating opportunities for people to prosper and enjoy life is enhancing financial literacy across the banked and underbanked populations in Thailand. Positioned as a financial friend, MONIX aims to strategically use FINNIX to support Thais in making more prudent financial management decisions that can only come through targeted financial education and awareness initiatives. Customer understanding of scams, poor lending practices, and exploitative financing is necessary to prevent loss or harm to the lives and assets of borrowers. A case in point is the “Debt Slave” campaign launched by FINNIX to address the burdensome costs of illegal debt that has proliferated in sections of the Thai market through a plethora of unlicensed lending apps. Drawing upon the reallife experiences of users who have been victims of such egregious operators, the campaign seeks to break the vicious cycle of fraudulent lending by discouraging the use of unlicensed digital apps and enabling customers to consider more regulated funding alternatives.

Likewise, the “Goo Sang, Goo Som” e-book, which offers clients practical advice and insights into the risks associated with borrowing from illegal lenders and types of financial fraud, has been downloaded more than 30,000 times. With a range of materials and resources designed to help consumers make better financial choices now available through the FINNIX platform, MONIX is facilitating unbanked customers, particularly those in lower income brackets, by providing them with much-needed perspective on how to reduce their financial pressures. Through knowledge, customers can secure their financial freedom, avoid unethical lending practices, and attain true “Empowerment” as envisaged by the F.I.R.E. Ecosystem strategy. Thiranun “Tyra” Arunwattanakul, the Chief Operating Officer of MONIX, said, “We are dedicated to financial inclusion and ensuring accessibility in personal finance for all. Our AI-powered digital lending platform, FINNIX, prioritises a humanised customer experience, revolutionising digital lending in Thailand and driving financial inclusion. We strive to provide exceptional experiences that make our customers’

lives easier, while continually improving accessibility and convenience. As part of our commitment to holistic financial literacy, we offer sustainable solutions such as FINNIX Credit Report, jobs and deals with partners, and gamification. By incorporating these elements, we empower the underbanked, especially the 36 million Thai people, through our innovative fintech solutions.

MONIX’s Case for Expansion in 2023 and Beyond The FINNIX platform has continued to record strong growth across the key customer engagement and retention metrics, acquiring over 740,000 consumers. MONIX is set to expand the F.I.R.E. Ecosystem strategy to include more products and services and aims to achieve a 1.5 times increase in loan growth in 2023. Their goal is to deepen their presence in the digital lending market and extend the FINNIX application to the independent professionals’ customer segment. The company strives to reach a THB 25 billion loan disbursement while collaborating with partners such as Lazada, Beneat, Thitaram, Daywork, and Divana. These collaborations aim to generate

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“Our AI-powered digital lending platform, FINNIX, prioritises a humanised customer experience, revolutionising digital lending in Thailand and driving financial inclusion.”

approximately 30,000 job opportunities for FINNIX customers and earn incremental revenue in both formal and informal sectors of the Thai economy. As the nascent Thai nano-finance loan segment grows by nearly 50% YoY and current loan balances have already eclipsed THB 31 billion, there is still ample room for growth. Based on the experience during the pandemic, customers prioritise digital channels. The ability to secure legal funding quickly at reasonable interest rates holds a unique appeal. Recent profiling of FINNIX loan applicants reveals that the average monthly income of a typical user is THB 10,000-20,000. Customers have the option to choose pay-as-youwish plans, which offer debt repayment flexibility based on their available cashflow. Moreover, the deployed AI and machine learning algorithms have demonstrated exceptional precision in analysing customer data, mitigating credit risk, and limiting the bad debt rate.

Khun Thiranun Arunwattanakul Chief Operating Officer (COO) of MONIX Co., Ltd.

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Certainly, through its FINNIX platform and F.I.R.E. Ecosystem strategy, MONIX has unlocked new synergies in facilitating the digital delivery of nano loans to the underbanked population in Thailand. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has recognised MONIX Co., Ltd. for the “Best Fintech for Digital CX – Personal Finance,” “Best Digital Bank for CX,” and a Highly Acclaimed “Best Retail Bank for Digital CX in Thailand” at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

Nedbank: Pioneering the ‘Beyond Banking’ Experience Nedbank has long established its prowess in the banking industry, offering a diverse suite of services tailored to the varied needs of its clientele, from individuals to businesses. The bank’s comprehensive offerings span from basic transactional banking to intricate risk management, investment products, and platform-based solutions. Their ambition goes beyond just providing financial services; they’re committed to delivering a ‘beyond banking’ experience. In recognition of its innovative strides and forward-thinking strategies, Nedbank was honoured as the ‘Best Bank for Transaction Banking Services in Africa’ at the esteemed Middle East & Africa Innovation Awards 2023, organised by The Digital Banker. This accolade doesn’t merely spotlight Nedbank’s role in digital banking innovation; it signifies its unwavering dedication to transcending traditional banking norms. Nirav Patel, Managing Director of The Digital Banker, aptly captures this sentiment, noting: “Nedbank has consistently showcased its prowess in harmoniously integrating traditional banking with digital advances. Their diverse services, highlighted by the Avo Super App and the expanded Value-added services platform, place them distinctively ahead, cementing their position as this year’s deserved winner.” The dynamics between consumers and banking services have significantly transformed in the modern era. The ability to adapt digitally is now an essential requirement rather than a mere luxury. Anticipating these evolving expectations, Nedbank has tirelessly championed digital tools, ranging from the intuitive MoneyApp, online banking facilities, and cellphone banking to versatile self-service kiosks. Furthermore, their multi-channel approach, which includes a roundthe-clock contact centre, Intelligent Depositors,

ATMs, and third-party channels through APIs, epitomises convenience, ensuring customers have flexibility in accessing their financial portfolios.

Redefining Client Experience with VAS and Digital Platforms The past year witnessed an ambitious expansion of Nedbank’s Value-added services (VAS) platform. As the digital paradigm expands, so does the customer appetite for a diverse and enriched banking experience. Catering to this, Nedbank unveiled an array of 488 unique products and services. This expansive range, managed in collaboration with multiple providers, underscores the bank’s commitment to ensuring that banking is an experience of value, not just a series of transactions. However, two of Nedbank’s offerings stand out prominently in their digital arsenal: the Avo Super App and the API_Marketplace. The Avo Super App transcends traditional banking app expectations, emerging as an everyday lifestyle ally. It streamlines online purchases, encompassing a spectrum of needs from daily groceries to planning holidays. Concurrently, the API_Marketplace, a beacon of Nedbank’s avant-garde vision, champions an integrated financial ecosystem. By facilitating crossindustry embedded finance, it rejuvenates

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“In the dynamic landscape of modern finance, Nedbank’s proactive approach to innovation and adaptation is a testament to its leadership in the sector.”

the conventional banking experience for both businesses and individual users.

‘Beyond Banking’ Paradigm In today’s fluid and ever-evolving financial landscape, Nedbank stands as a beacon of progressiveness. Their commitment to innovation and adaptation, seamlessly integrated into every facet of their operations, speaks volumes about their leadership in the sector. This proactive approach positions them not merely as participants but as trailblazers,

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forging a path for others to follow. Their expansive suite of services, reflecting a harmonious blend of the traditional and the digital, represents their relentless pursuit of excellence. The ‘beyond banking’ paradigm isn’t just a concept for Nedbank – it’s a lived reality they offer to every client. As the boundaries between classical banking methods and modern digital solutions become increasingly indistinct, Nedbank confidently carves out its niche, setting a precedent that is likely to shape the future of global finance.

OCBC: A Vanguard of Digital Banking Innovations At the forefront of banking revolutions, OCBC continues to reshape the way businesses interact with financial institutions. Whether through the seamless integration of technology or a deep commitment to enhance customer experiences, the bank has set the gold standard. This vision and diligence have not gone unnoticed. At the Global Transaction Banking Innovation Awards 2022, organised by The Digital Banker, OCBC walked away with top honours, amassing multiple accolades that spotlight its innovative spirit. Recognised for its formidable contributions to the banking sector, OCBC was awarded Best Bank for Cash Management - Indonesia, Best Bank for Trade Finance - Indonesia, Best Corporate Card Solution, and the Outstanding Account Opening and Onboarding Initiative.

especially in corporate digital card solutions and simplifying the account opening journey for SMEs, is a testament to their forward-thinking strategy in defining the banking landscape.”

The First Digital Business Debit Card Nirav Patel, Managing Director of The Digital Banker, commented, “OCBC’s unwavering dedication to integrating technology and prioritising customers sets them apart in today’s banking world. Their pioneering approach,

The digital age has seen a surge in consumer digital cards, yet it’s rare to find a bank leading the charge for corporate digital cards. That’s where OCBC stands out. In 2021, the Singapore-based financial giant became the first among local banks to offer

“With its continuous drive for excellence and a keen ear to the ground, OCBC is set to guide the SME banking landscape towards new frontiers, fostering growth and sustainability in an everevolving digital age.”

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its corporate clientele a Digital Business Debit Card. Understanding the essential role a business debit card plays in daily operations, OCBC introduced digital issuance via its award-winning Business Banking platform, OCBC Velocity. Now, businesses can seamlessly provision the card onto mobile devices and execute transactions instantaneously, without waiting for a physical card delivery. OCBC isn’t merely digitalising processes but is also enhancing the user experience and ensuring efficient resource utilisation. Insights from the digital card issuance have enabled the bank to refine its offerings further. A faster activation and utilisation rate suggests customers are swiftly capitalising on online purchases.

Revolutionising SME Account Opening and Onboarding For small business owners, time is often a luxury. Recognising this, OCBC pioneered an online business account opening platform in 2018. Leveraging Singapore’s national data repository MyInfo, the bank provides a 24/7 service, allowing Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to start their banking journey at any time, from anywhere. Today, a striking 98% of account openings by SMEs in Singapore were completed digitally. In further testament to OCBC’s commitment to service excellence, the all-in-one business account for SMEs offers free FAST and GIRO transactions. Moreover, integration with Xero’s online accounting platform via OCBC Velocity has made daily cash flow tracking and reconciliation smoother for SMEs. The digital Business Financial Management (BFM) tool, embedded within OCBC Velocity, is a gamechanger. SMEs can now effortlessly digitalise operations and financial management processes. This includes creating e-invoices at no cost, simplifying cash flow tracking. OCBC’s ingenuity didn’t stop there. Given the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the

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bank introduced Remote Account Opening in 2021. This video-call-based onboarding experience offers unparalleled convenience to business owners. From the comfort of their homes or offices, or even from overseas, they can open an account, address queries, and verify information in real-time. Elevating this innovation further, OCBC established a unique partnership with ACRA (Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority). This integration enables new business owners to open a business account immediately after incorporation, a first in the ASEAN region. The result? A tenfold increase in online account applications since its launch. In addition, OCBC has spearheaded digital passport authentication in its ‘Know-YourCustomer’ (KYC) process for foreign owners of Singapore-based SMEs. Since its implementation, these entrepreneurs can bypass the traditional verification method of submitting notarised documents. Instead, they can use a secure NFC chip-equipped digital passport, scanning it via the OCBC Business mobile app. While local business leaders continue using the national Myinfo system for KYC, this innovation caters to the increasing blend of local and international stakeholders in Singapore’s SME landscape. The future is bright for OCBC, having already exported many of these groundbreaking solutions to other key markets, including Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Indonesia. With its continuous drive for excellence and a keen ear to the ground, OCBC is set to guide the SME banking landscape towards new frontiers, fostering growth and sustainability in an ever-evolving digital age.

Standard Chartered Bank’s (Singapore) focus on creating better digital experiences through innovation drives user adoption As the financial services industry registers an acceleration in digital transformation the need for a fast, secure and frictionless omni-channel platform and delivering the best customer experience is critically important. Standard Chartered Bank (SC) in Singapore exemplifies this having made significant investments in its tech infrastructure, digital banking services, while seamlessly integrating all customer points of engagement to provide a smooth and tailored experience for its clients. With the focus on elevating customer experience the Bank has prioritised technological advancements to both its mobile and internet banking platforms in meeting client needs. Refreshing digital banking facilitating enablement guided by data-driven User Experience (UX) research Certainly, SC Singapore has recorded growth in the customer utilisation of its digital services principally driven through its revamped SC Mobile. The new mobile banking app provides clients with an intuitive and user-friendly User Interface (UI) designed to ensure simplified digital journeys for its customers. The introduction of contextual navigation has helped reduce the number of clicks needed to reach critical features by up to 50%. Furthermore, users have access to their finances on a 24/7 basis and access to relevant insights and personalised solutions for a more empowered digital interaction and experience. SC Singapore has prioritised client satisfaction through continued improvements and enhancements to user experience, through datadriven UX research from client feedback, focus groups and prototype testing. This has resulted in a 10% year-on-year increase in the number of digitally active customers of more than 80% of

the Bank’s user base, regularly interacting across the various digital touchpoints. The strength of SC Singapore’s digital capabilities is reflected in the quadrupling in the share of digital sales as a proportion of overall revenue.

Delivering a value-added digital banking engagement through personalisation Another critical factor that has been expanding users’ in-app engagement has been the provision of budget management tools, intelligent alerts and nudges, gamification and offering of realtime incentives. The use of MoneyThor’s personal finance management engine management engine has been essential in delivering contextualised interactions and a more cohesive MarTech stack. The consolidation of customer transaction data and ability to set monthly budgetary limits has provided users with greater visibility on expenses while reinforcing transaction monitoring capabilities. With this contextual insights, users are able to manage their personal spend flows more

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prudently. Five categories of customer insights are made available to clients: money management, customer education, product engagement, product and campaigns. Each user will have a distinct and unique experience when engaging via SC Mobile as insights generated are specific to their circumstances and goals in financial management. The real-time personalised insights based on extensive customer data facilitates customers in being better prepared and making more informed decisions in a timely manner. Likewise, the Bank’s introduction of eVouchers keeps clients updated on current and ongoing online promotions as well as their progress on attaining specific milestones. SC Singapore’s incorporation of additional data enlarging the library of automated evergreen insights further facilitates contextualised messaging and triggers user engagement. The continued finetuning of the in-app experience has resulted in a Best in Class in overall banking net promoter score, as real-time information on personal accounts, transaction and spending patterns builds trust between the Bank and customer.

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Streamlining digital wealth proposition to augment hybrid Customer Experience (CX) capabilities In line with SC Singapore’s efforts to empower its customers and have greater control over their banking journey with smart and flexible solutions, the Bank launched a new digital wealth proposition. This initiative enables its wealth clients to digitally access a well-rounded suite of wealth management services ranging from market insights to selfserved trading platforms, all while still retaining the “human touch” providing options for connecting with relevant investment specialists as and when required. The Bank prioritised leveraging data & analytics and “creating thinking” to ensure a simple, fast and secure financial wellness journey by allowing its customers to purchase investment products through online platforms seamlessly. Presently, all core wealth services and platforms are available digitally either via SC Mobile or SC Online Trading and clients are in a position to interact with their designated RM digitally and securely through the myRM platform as needed.

Furthermore, a complete financial review comprising the client’s investment holdings, risk profile rating, and market outlook can be completed online via SC Mobile in as less than 10 minutes – a process that previously used to take up to four hours on average due to lengthy discussions and deliberation on investment proposal formulation and portfolio construction. Digitally-savvy wealth customers are positively responding to this enhancement with a view to seeking quality investment advice, to help its customers seek opportunities to navigate through market uncertainties and build a resilient portfolio. Likewise, myWealth Advisor enables customers to quickly coordinate meetings with their RM either virtually or face-to-face and the latest investment ideas and advice within a few clicks. Customers can

then execute unit trust, equities or FX trades online while also tracking portfolio profitability. Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore) is comprehensively delivering on its commitment towards providing smart, secure and seamless digital banking experiences to its customers. The Bank has elevated the quality of digital interactions by addressing customer pain-points and introducing relevant initiatives that conform with evolving client lifestyle needs. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has recognised Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore) for “Best Digital Bank for CX in Singapore”, “Best Use of Technology for Customer Experience - Overall”, and an “Outstanding Hybrid CX in Wealth Management” distinction at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

“SC Singapore has prioritised client satisfaction through continued improvements and enhancements to user experience through data-driven UX research informed by client feedback, interviews and prototype testing.”

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Payment Asia Offers Digital Asset Management Services to Bridge Traditional Finance and Web3 With the world speeding up into the digital era, Payment Asia, the Hong Kongheadquartered payment solutions provider, has incorporated digital asset custodial services into its corporate treasury capabilities. The payment service provider announced its latest plan to cater to the growing demand for digital asset financing. In the fast-paced world of digital assets, quick and efficient means of transferring money can significantly impact the success of a business. Yet clients may face hurdles when they want to convert their assets - consisting primarily of stablecoins, BTC, and NFTs - into a fiat currency. In an effort to solve the problem, Payment Asia builds a platform that offers clients who want to set up trust account an additional option of digital asset management service. Powered by its affiliated companies, the service includes custodians for cryptocurrencies and NFTs, which are the two most common digital assets people hold these days. Then the assets will be linked with corporate credit cards to pay bills in fiat currencies. The inclusive trust management platform allows people to easily manage their digital assets, stocks, cash, real estate, and even art pieces - all in one place. Clients can review their associated spending allocation, and check assets under management in real time for efficient and transparent budgeting. Kavi Harilela, Payment Asia Business Director, said:” Traditional finance needs to provide a Web3-friendly environment for asset holders as cryptocurrencies and NFTs became popular these days. Hong Kong, as Asia’s financial center, is stepping up to nurture a better and more regulated environment for Web3 startups. It symbols a greater acceptance from traditional finance to

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embrace the new era of Web3 finance.” Now with the help of AI, the onboarding process of the platform is also easy. The full capability of the platform can be accessed via just a customised link, offering users support at every step of trust management. A fully-automated Electronic Know Your Customer (E-KYC) process has been used to onboard clients. It allows clients to verify their identity via a remote, paperless process that not only minimises costs but also reduces bureaucratic delays. “A reliable bridge is very much needed between the old fiat world and the new crypto world of Web3 - and we can call it Web 2.5,” said Harilela. “We would like to make Web3 investment and asset management easier, using our decades of experience in traditional finance. There is enormous potential in the Web3 industry and we look forward to making positive contributions to the virtual asset ecosystem.” Singapore and Hong Kong have been reiterating their commitments to growing the Web3 industry. The financial services industry has mostly led the way in adopting some of these digital technologies and assets—at its peak, the daily transaction volume processed on decentralised-finance exchanges exceeded $10 billion. Now the adaptive usage of Web3 technology has come into other sectors such as gaming, carbon markets, and art, among others.

Web3 effectively enables traditional revenue streams to accumulate to the users of a platform, increasing the user value proposition relative to their Web2 equivalents. Regulatory oversight, customer experience, and the underlying technology will all need to further mature for mainstream adoption to occur. Experts believe that novel and unexplored assets will continue to form, including stablecoins, CBDCs, governance tokens, NFTs, and tokenised real estate, among others, according to a Mckinsey report. Driven by new use cases and expanding latent retail and corporate demand, certain assets could also continue to tokenise. And we may see many assets—including bonds and commodities — both their traditional and tokenised versions can coexist. As such, retail and institutional investors need to facilitate enough channels for new Web3 assets, and build a compliant ecosystem for both traditional and Web3 finance. There is a need for more infrastructure related to custody and asset servicing, clearing and settlement, tokenisation and issuance, risk and compliance, and wallets and identity. As a payment provider established in Hong

“Experts believe that novel and unexplored assets will continue to form, including stablecoins, CBDCs, governance tokens, NFTs, and tokenised real estate, among others.”

Kong in 1999 and keeps evolving, Payment Asia has the edge in traditional finance and it keeps helping Web3 businesses to expand with its decades of experience in different regulatory regimes. Web3 is still in its early stages of development. But its potential is widely recognised. Companies, whether they are large or small, as well as public and social sectors need to think about responsible ways to push the industry forward.

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Prudential Thailand: Optimising omni-channel customer journeys for creating lasting experiences The insurance market in Thailand has continued to register strong growth as changing socio-demographics, customer awareness and demand for protection solutions rose following the pandemic. This coincided with the entry of new insurtech players, alternate distribution channels and technology-based enhancements that competed for attention among various market participants seeking risk avoidance or transfer options. Likewise, given the pace at which digitisation, product innovation and service enhancement has been reshaping the Thailand insurance industry, Prudential Thailand, one of Thailand’s leading life insurance companies, deftly considered reimagining the customer journey through an omni-channel framework, essential in providing seamless service interactions across all client-facing touchpoints.

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Enhancing digital capabilities to drive market penetration and customer convenience Prudential Thailand incorporates a multi-channel distribution strategy that encompasses three bancassurance partnerships with a reach of 800 plus branches, an agency network comprising more than 1900 agents, telemarketing team in addition to

online and mobile banking channels. Importantly, the insurance provider’s digital propositions are available via digital apps and social media platform “LINE”, enabling access to protection solutions by just a “click” away. These digital channels in particular have proven to be quite effective as Prudential Thailand emerged second overall among digital insurance players in terms of market share. Importantly, the company’s annual premium equivalent (APE) sales tripled during 2022 driven by the range of products on offer and the company’s significant investments in its distribution channels having digital capabilities embedded to facilitate the 1.9 million policy holder client-base.

“Prudential Thailand has systematically transformed its channel engagement strategy that has contributed to continuous improvement in digital experience through its customer-centric approach.”

Single-view capability essential for cross-channel consistency Moreover, Prudential Thailand has ensured seamless omni-channel customer experience with single-view capability through its “PRUAwesome Hub” initiative enabling all 120+ users to support customers in availing consistent service interactions reinforced across all channels. Through lead and service management, the hub provides for faster collaboration and shortened response time making customers feel connected and valued as the online and offline experience is aligned with customer requirements and expectations. Likewise, the one central platform provides for a more consolidated view of the customer capturing all transactional data and engagement behaviour across channels facilitating a streamlined customer journey. This enables Prudential Thailand to gain better client insight, understand their needs and deliver the next best action with real-time support as the company realises operational efficiencies and productivity gains by leveraging the Hub.

Listening to the voice of the customer essential for maintaining service quality Similarly, Prudential Thailand has ensured that customer feedback is sourced in real-time

across the insurance value chain commencing from acquisition and servicing to claims administration. This has also provided for better account management as the company leverages marketing automation to design personalised content that connects with potential customers, while ensuring that all resulting communication remains highly-dynamic. Indeed, reflecting its efforts the insurance provider recorded NPS scores of +55, +40 and +50 for purchases, claims and servicing with customer satisfaction reaching 97%, 83% and 88% respectively in 2022 as the institution’s total assets and total benefits paid reached THB 118.9 billion and THB 10.3 billion respectively. Certainly, Prudential Thailand has systematically transformed its channel engagement strategy that has contributed to continuous improvement in digital experience through its customercentric approach. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has recognised Prudential Life Assurance (Thailand) for “Excellence in Omni-Channel Customer Experience - Insurance” and a Highly Acclaimed “Outstanding Digital CX Transformation in Insurance” distinction at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

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Exclusive Interview with Syed Shoaib Pasha, Global Head Digital Channels, Standard Chartered What’s Driving the Adoption of Cloud in Banks? Syed Shoaib Pasha: At Standard Chartered, our objective is to deliver a seamless, instant and personal customer experience. Our approach under velocity, is to enhance the mobile first customer experience while progressively bringing new features and services to our clients. This approach is more customer centric, it allows us to bring incremental improvement in an agile way and capture customer feedback instantly and quickly react on it. The new experience has been a game changer in the market and extremely well received by our clients resulting in almost immediate improvement in mobile adoption and customer satisfaction where AppStore and Playstore ratings are now close to 5 in China and Pakistan. What value has the uniform code base brought to ensure faster speed to market and enable function reusability across markets? Syed Shoaib Pasha: Having the same technology and user experience designs amongst our markets helps us to improve delivery velocity. Digital is a fast changing space, the ability to deliver customer centric mobile first solution at pace is critical to our Digital strategy and our business overall. Features are developed 2X faster once they have been already introduce in one market, this is a game changer. Why was the “Mobile Satisfaction Score” introduced and how does it capture customer feedback? Syed Shoaib Pasha: The mobile satisfaction score 60 The Digital Banker | Issue 2 | 2023

is a key enabler of our Digital strategy. It helps us deliver on three imperatives (i) Instantly capture the customer sentiment while using our digital solution (ii) identify areas of development which we directly connect to our priorities and (iii) Continuously benchmark ourselves with our peers and see how we perform. What impact has the “Mobile Satisfaction Score” on improving customer satisfaction and user experience and which new markets are being considered for its deployment? Syed Shoaib Pasha: The Mobile satisfaction score is our dashboard, it drives our decisions and priorities. We directly connect our new feature design with the feedback of the customer, this is truly becoming a customer centric organisation. We definitely have plans to further replicate this approach in many markets, earlier this year we have introduce our new mobile experience in Singapore… MORE TO COME!!!

Standard Chartered: Enhancing the client journey through new platform development As global trade flows recover and the international commercial & investment landscape improves following the pandemic, corporates in emerging and frontier markets especially those located in the Africa & Middle East (AME) region have been increasingly seeking consistent, resilient and scalable solutions to power their treasury and supply chain management needs across all points of engagement with digital at its core. As client experience (CX) is being redefined and financial requirements fast-evolving, Standard Chartered (SC) Corporate, Commercial & Institutional Banking (CCIB) segment proactively developed and upgraded their digital platform, Straight2bank, through its Digital Channels and Data Analytics (DCDA) arm.

CCIB accelerates Straight2bank upgrade and AME client migration Effectively, DCDA is enabling the delivery of key digital services for the Bank’s corporate & institutional clients, with a strategic objective of maintaining superior and consistent customer experience. To achieve this, SC proactively accelerated the Straight2bank upgrade and associated client migrations in 2022, with Africa and Middle East Clients (AME) being the first across the regions to adopt the new platform. Importantly, the regional DCDA team servicing AME clients is tasked with driving the in-market platform deployment of the Bank’s digital platform and implementation of its commercialisation strategy across the 23+ countries within the region. This is centred on digitising customer journeys to elevate client experience through ease of connectivity, faster transaction execution and access to datadriven insights.

Suite of digital solutions and data capabilities as core differentiator The CCIB DCDA strategy is predicated on the ability to provide holistic digital CX solutions that can support key Cash, Trade and FX offerings. These encompass digital onboarding for new-to-bank customer s with web e-forms,a mobile app for Straight2bank with biometrics and cash utilities for corporate customers, digital application of loan drawdowns, digital initiation of audit confirmation and several other utilities. Moreover, the platform has embedded online self-service functions such as AI powered Chatbot, contextual on-screen guidance tool ‘Walk-Me’ and live chat with service agents for clients needing guidance. In addition to upgrading the proprietary digital platform, SC enhanced its offering with open banking functions through advanced integration of APIs across the range of Cash, Trade & Financial Markets products. The data architecture is built using a machine learning framework to deliver advanced analytics at scale for both internal stakeholders so as to enable capture of client wallet share, while offering insights to clients for better FX and liquidity decision-making.

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AME Regional NextGen migration adoption resonates with business clients Clearly, the efforts of the DCDA AME team have generated beneficial outcomes for the Bank’s CCIB clients as the move from legacy classic to NextGen unveiled new enhancements and features such as self-administration options and digital initiation of lending products through web portal. Importantly, more than 30,000 e-banking profiles were upgraded and AME is the first region within the SC network to achieve this milestone globally. Clients responded positively as reflected in the record high Net Promoter Scores (NPS) of +74% coupled with high digital initiation rates for cash & payments services at 99%, digital onboarding exceeding 60% and mobile app utilisation of more than 55% in 2022. Similarly, the utilisation of the built-in digital servicing tools reached 60% with first call resolution rates rising above 60% during the period under review.

Seamless platform migration across systems complements transition efforts In addition, the Bank through its DCDA team delivered key change-management initiatives and alignment activities such as a “Client Needs Forum” that highlighted migration progress, underscored benefits of the upgraded platform and sourced client feedback to reinforce confidence in the programme. Likewise, “Train the Trainer” sessions helped prepare 100 key front-line staff to be across the new interface features and services to provide more meaningful support to clients. Crucially, to maintain CX standards and facilitate client comfort, DCDA ensured that newly migrated clients would be able to toggle between the previous and the new version s of the platform for a 60-90 days period to familiarise themselves with the improved changed user interface. This helped clients to better prepare and plan for the platform upgrade as active digital communication with clients continued throughout the migration process to reassure users. SC had mandated a zero-business impact throughout the transformation journey extending to the post-migration phase.

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Standard Chartered Bank through its DCDA AME team has truly demonstrated exceptional change management in delivering new and improved digital CX standards to its CCIB clients. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has recognised Standard Chartered Bank (UAE) for a Highly Acclaimed “Outstanding Implementation of Digital CX Initiative by a Team” distinction at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

“The CCIB DCDA strategy is predicated on the ability to provide holistic digital CX solutions that can support key Cash, Trade and FX offerings.”

SC China Mobile App: Reimagining the mobile banking experience to empower customers The Chinese banking landscape remains one of the largest and most competitive marketplaces globally and Standard Chartered Bank (China) or SC China as a key international lender in this complex and diverse financial ecosystem has uniquely positioned itself leveraging its digital competencies. Overcoming market barriers driven by size, access and population, the Bank has expanded its network across 30 locations encompassing the coast and interior of China in conjunction with its digital service offerings driven by continuous innovation to enhance client engagement.

“Investing in our digital capabilities and improving the efficiency of our platform and infrastructure is vital to enhancing the client experience. We are strengthening our Online-to-Offline banking capabilities to uplift customer acquisition, upgrading customer services, optimising customer engagement, and looking into ways to excel at frontline productivity.”

Richard Li Head, CPBB, China and Deputy Chief Executive China Standard Chartered Bank (China) Ltd

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Creating value for clients through speed, ease of use and safety Importantly, given how the pandemic has redefined customer expectations, SC China proactively prioritised a revamp of its digital ecosystem, pioneered by its “Velocity Project” whose strategic objective has been to trigger a renaissance in the user experience via the new and improved SC Mobile App. Indeed, the SC China mobile banking experience utilises well-established engineering standards to deliver value with speed and ensure that customer needs are addressed through modern, simple and contextual digital interactions that facilitate on-the-go, anytime & anywhere transactions. The Bank has also incorporated enhanced digital security, biometrics and authentication controls for added protection. Furthermore, the Velocity project unlocks business value for SC China through reduced turnaround times as the online-based functionality is elevated via Nitro 5.0 building blocks built on critical UX standards pivotal in delivering faster and consistent end-to-end digital journeys.

The pre-login enhancement reflects SC China’s adaptation to evolving digital behaviour of its clients that consider it as a pre-requisite for optimum navigability. The TD booking volume alone through the Mobile App pre-login deep link function has increased by 24 times.

Augmenting local market focus and client experience capabilities Certainly, the SC Mobile App pre-login feature and deep link function introduced for meeting local client needs, provides customers with necessary and relevant product or service guidance to enable faster transaction execution, while removing design impediments that unnecessarily delay customer action.

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Fostering digital excellence through superior client experience, advocacy and usage Indeed, the impact for SC China of its upgraded Mobile App has been multifaceted. Following a four and half month agile and co-creation development period, SC China Mobile APP was

launched in September 2022. SC China has placed itself well among its international peer banks in the country, having recorded an average digital NPS of 56.5 in 2022, compared with 50 in 2021 reinforcing strong customer recommendation. Moreover, the Bank registered a record high NPS of 60.1 in November 2022 following the launch of its client communication campaign. Similarly, SC China has deepened digital usage as more than 90% of transactions and product booking being routed via its online and mobile banking channels and mobile activation rate increasing by 2.7% YoY. Likewise, its app store ratings have increased dramatically on both Apple Store from 3.2 to 4.7 and Huawei Store from 1.5 to 4.6 with scores of positive reviews.

Mobile-First as key first step in omnichannel optimisation strategy SC China considers continued optimisation of the mobile app essential as part of its broader omnichannel engagement strategy. With insurance and structured deposits embedded with pre-login

functions and Live Bank capability enabling clients to communicate with call centre representatives and submit documents in a secure environment being phased in, the Bank is well on its journey of becoming the digital bank of choice among its international peers in China. Its strategic partnerships with Ant Financial on personal lending products as well as integrated 3rd party payment capabilities complements its broader client-centric focus. In addition, the WeChat banking service enables sustained interaction with clients and prospects through the widely used social platform making seamless digital experience possible. Fundamentally, SC China has delivered on ensuring a new and modern look of its mobile app that has empowered its customers to execute transactions faster via simplified navigation. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has recognised Standard Chartered Bank (China) for the “Best Retail Bank for Digital CX in China” at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

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Security Bank: Strategically refining customer engagement models The Philippines-based Security Bank Corporation, one of the country’s leading universal banks, has been actively undertaking digital initiatives to elevate customer experience to drive continued client engagement. The expansion of its self-service options has been in direct response to both changing market dynamics and evolving customer behaviour that has been gradually redefining client-bank relationships. Clearly, there is a discernible shift towards empowering customers through digital solutions such as chatbot and live chat channels, which can service client requests in real-time or near realtime. Importantly, it provides customers the added convenience of conducting transactions without having to go to the physical branch or waiting in a queue to speak with a hotline agent.

Moreover, customers that are logged on after having already completed the online authentication process were no longer subject to additional verification during the live chat. The simplified user journey and personalisation options enabled Security Bank to realise strong customer endorsement, with 65% of respondents in a postlaunch survey rating the experience a solid 5 (the highest on 1-5 scale) with no customer rating the Bank below 4.

In-App Chat as the customers’ preferred service channel Effectively, the Bank’s decision to deploy an In-App Chat function has been designed primarily to reduce branch footfall and hotline call volumes, providing customers with access to an alternative channel for directed transactions. While Security Bank was already providing chatbot and live chat services for client queries and concerns, via Facebook Messenger, its capacity was restricted to answering FAQs and non-account related concerns. The In-App Chat overcame this limitation by integrating the chatbot into the Bank’s mobile app and online banking platform, thereby ensuring a secure and encrypted environment protecting customer data. Furthermore, Security Bank enabled a frictionless customer engagement, prioritising a smooth handoff from the chatbot to a live chat agent, where the client can continue the conversation if needed.

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Customer satisfaction dashboard for a holistic view of client sentiment Likewise, with a focus on maintaining its clientcentricity, Security Bank, deftly created a customer dashboard leveraging the Bank’s Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) survey results for a more informed and evidence-based understanding of customer feedback. Capturing client experience and expectations across various product, channel and customer journeys were extracted and used as a basis for service improvements and enhancements. Fundamentally, this provided all business units with perspective on their respective customer segments, as well as offered additional context that shaped a particular customer’s response. Given the multi-layered datapoints, the dashboard facilitated multiple teams in collaborating to address client

pain points in a methodical and systematic manner. Similarly, key units worked together to efficiently identify and execute required service and process improvements aligned with customer inputs. Three key journeys that had been identified included: Customer Update Information, Security Bank Online Request and Security Bank Online Related Inquiries each registering significant increase in CSAT scores of 28%, 14% and 8% following the launch of projects tailored to uplift these specific functions.

Security Bank has clearly demonstrated its commitment to enhancing customer retention and loyalty through initiatives that optimise user journeys and operational processes. The Bank has plans for extending its digital customer engagement through deeper automation and smarter self-service functions. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has recognised Security Bank Corporation for an “Outstanding Chatbot Customer Experience” and a Highly Acclaimed “Best Customer Insights Initiative” distinction at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

“The simplified user journey and personalisation options enabled Security Bank to realise strong customer endorsement.”

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South Indian Bank: Staying ahead of the curve through Next-Gen digital offerings The function that SMEs play in an economy is well established in terms of their role in facilitating growth, generating wealth and creating employment. Importantly, SMEs operate under complex conditions where a persistent financing gap constrains working capital and limits available cash flow thereby impeding their ability to realise new opportunities. It is within this context that India-based South Indian Bank (SIB) has deftly introduced a GST Business Loan offering designed to augment the SME sector in the country. Consider, the SIB GST Business Loan is a fully digital lending solution that is based on the Goods and Services Tax returns filed by respective SME entities. Furthermore, lending terms take in to account both the bureau score and various socio-economic scoring parameters to ensure appropriate risk-based pricing. The uptake from clients has been favourable given that within a period of one month a total of INR 600 million in loans were disbursed to 491 SMEs driven primarily by SIB’s unique digital proposition.

Digital strategy designed to enrich SME client experience Indeed, the Bank has a dedicated strategy designed to leverage the best-in-class technologies to support the sophisticated needs of SMEs across all touchpoints and powered by resilient and scalable systems. Having fully embraced digital transformation, SIB recognises the value in executing a multi-pronged digital strategy developed on the basis of an Indulge, Nudge, Purge and Forge (INPF) framework to ensure that the requisite offerings such as the GST Business Loan can be effectively delivered. Focusing on the Indulge strategy, SIB has resolved to offer clients a range of self-service options

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to execute their SME banking functions, while through Nudge it encourages customers to migrate to digital. Similarly, the Purge strategy ensures automation of processes on a priority basis by discarding manual steps and legacy systems, while Forge advances the impactful collaboration and partnership with relevant fintech companies.

Rethinking effective digital journeys that are transforming customer relationships Recent initiatives that speak to the efficacy of this unique model include the video-KYC account opening to facilitate customer onboarding, the SIB OneCard Credit Card issuance platform enabling payments and export receivable factoring under the lending vertical. Furthermore, the Bank has constituted a MarTech platform that purposefully deploys push notification, email marketing, social media marketing etc. for targeted campaigns. A closer examination reveals that the videoKYC account opening has empowered clients in opening the desired account within minutes, while the SIB OneCard Credit Card issuance platform ensures instant card issuance for eligible customers. Likewise, the Bank also offers export

receivable factoring services priced at around 80%, with discounting of export receivables conducted only once appropriate documents are shared by the exporter via the online portal.

in local fintech IBBIC, engagement with the NPCI initiative “Vajra”, as well ensuring preparedness for the Reserve Bank of India’s launch of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

Fundamentally, for SME clients, the online MSME lending portal has proven to be decisive for customers seeking to secure instant in-principal loan approvals for up to INR 10 million with the entire end-to-end digital journey being completed within 10 minutes.

The Bank is also exploring potential participation in the Account Aggregator ecosystem that will augment credit underwriting and reduce reliance on conventional bureau score-based lending practices. This Open Credit Enablement Network (OCEN) will help users to source digital financing having the flexibility to choose what financial data with which entity.

Application of emerging technologies to deepen digital engagements SIB remains focussed on effectively using emerging technologies such Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) to fully automate and enhance both its front-end and back-end processes. The Bank has enabled 250 plus processes with Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Similarly, SIB is considering blockchain based use-cases for application in the business, through its investment

Certainly, South Indian Bank has methodically transformed its digital engagement strategy particularly for SMEs that has materially contributed to an enhanced customer experience. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has recognised South Indian Bank for a Highly Acclaimed “Outstanding Digital CX – SME Loans” distinction at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

“Focusing on the Indulge strategy, SIB has resolved to offer clients a range of self-service options to execute their SME banking functions.”

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Standard Chartered Securities (B) Sdn Bhd: empowering clients through innovation and digitalisation As the financial markets infrastructure develops in Brunei Darussalam and demand for more sophisticated investment products increases, Standard Chartered Securities (B) Sdn Bhd (SCSB) supported by Standard Chartered Bank Brunei, has expanded its investment portfolio and financial planning tools to service the unique needs of Brunei’s affluent and emerging affluent customer base. Authorised by the Brunei Darussalam Central Bank as a Capital Market Service Licence holder, SCSB distributes investment products and offers wealth planning advice to retail and accredited investors. Leading the way with extensive suite of products and services Certainly, SCSB has positioned itself to offer holistic products and services encompassing more than

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70-unit trusts, over 200 bonds and structured notes. These are offered in conjunction with financial planning services designed to address the strategic financial goals of clients with specific risk profiles

and stage of life scenarios. Moreover, as the first approved Islamic window in Brunei, SCSB also offers Shariah compliant unit trusts providing clients with options for Islamic investments. Likewise, the range of sustainable investments has also been extended to cover various asset classes facilitating clients that choose to direct their funds towards more responsible securities.

Leveraging new platforms and digital tools to supports clients Importantly, SCSB continues to prioritise enhancing its digital ecosystem to keep clients abreast of the latest market trends and developments, empowering them with relevant insights to help navigate financial markets, make more informed investments decisions and take advantage of strategic and tactical investment ideas on a timely basis. Among the recent initiatives that SCSB has launched include the following: •

•

Interactive Fund Library: available on its website www.sc.com/bn/invest, the Fund Library allows clients to view, search and compare all available funds and access key fund information such as factsheets, fund performance and annual reports. SC Money Insights: a podcast series by Standard Chartered’s global investment strategists created to bring investors current market views with content accessible in bitesized format. It has become a preferred tool by clients with total downloads recording over 60% YoY increase.

•

Market views-on-the-go: clients are given the option of availing global resources to analyse financial markets around the world, with featured articles such as Global Market Outlook, Weekly Market Views and Market Watch.

•

Fund Select: Standard Chartered’s global team of fund analysts apply a “3P” framework of Performance, People and Process for fund due diligence. The outcome is a list of recommended funds selected based on performance, manager expertise and investment process.

Brenda Low Chief Executive Officer, Standard Chartered Securities (B) Sdn Bhd

•

Online Investment Portfolio: A first of its kind in Brunei, providing clients with upto-date information on their investment portfolio including the latest positioning and downloadable consolidated monthly statements for up to 12 months.

The impact for SCSB has been transformative as the proportion of clients with a wealth product who are digitally active has increased by 11% YoY in 2022 with the overall Brunei franchise recording an NPS score of +50.5.

Making investing convenient and accessible in a sustainable way As a reflection of its net zero commitment, SCSB has also digitised the delivery of investment advice and portfolio statements to clients, successfully migrating more than 90% of clients to this channel. Clients now also have the convenience of consulting via video calls and subscribing to new investments over the phone or through email instructions with their designated relationship manager or wealth consultant, considerably reducing the institution’s carbon footprint. These form part of SCSB’s broader automation of core systems and services while making all-round real-time investment advisory more accessible.

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Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has awarded Standard Chartered Securities (B) Sdn Bhd for “Outstanding Transformation in Digital CX by a Wealth Manager” at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023. “This recognition is a testament to Standard Chartered Securities’ commitment to innovation and its dedication to provide best in class experience for our clients” said Brenda Low, Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered Securities (B) Sdn Bhd.

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“SCSB has positioned itself to offer holistic products and services encompassing more than 70-unit trusts, over 200 bonds and structured notes.”

Trust Bank: Creating tangible customer value by establishing new standards in digital CX As the financial services ecosystem continues its evolution seeking the pursuit of frictionless customer experience, ensuring a seamless connectivity across all points of engagement while ensuring customer-centricity has become paramount. Client engagements have been redefined through adoption of new business models, digital innovation and collaboration with ecosystem partners in other industries to significantly elevate the quality of customer services. Players seeking the optimal engagement strategy are equally reliant on market and business intelligence to better understand their customers and facilitate successful customer journeys. The entry of Trust Bank Singapore (Trust) on September 1, 2022 in the Singapore market is proving to be a watershed development in the citystate’s evolution as a mature and highly advanced international financial centre. As the country benefits from the ubiquitous use of smartphones, resilient internet infrastructure and scalable new platforms, the formation of a burgeoning digital economy will unlock further innovation particularly within the formidable banking sector.

Deepening market share augmented by strong customer engagement Trust emerged as the first of Singapore’s digitallynative banks to launch fully to the public. Backed by a unique partnership between Standard Chartered Bank and the FairPrice Group, Trust was well placed in coming to market with three products and a well-established loyalty rewards system. Indeed, this proved crucial for the digital bank as it deftly navigated a well-banked market characterised with strong levels of competition. Trust set out to develop new standards of digital banking experiences for its customers, while delivering its customers a wide range of rewards

benefits from the FairPrice Group ecosystem. With an average onboarding time of around 3 minutes, more than 600,000 customers or 12% of the addressable market signed up within the first year. This has made Trust the world’s fastest growing digital bank as at year one. Users responded to the easy-to-use and transparent digital interactions coupled with a ground-breaking customer referral programme. Around 70% of new customers came

“Backed by a unique partnership between Standard Chartered Bank and the FairPrice Group, Trust was well placed in coming to market with three products and a wellestablished loyalty rewards system.”

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At Trust Bank’s launch event: Standard Chartered Bank’s Cluster CEO for Singapore and Asean Markets Mr Patrick Lee, FairPrice Group Chairman Mr Kee Teck Koon, NTUC Enterprise Chairman Mr Lim Boon Heng, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Mr Lawrence Wong, Standard Chartered Bank’s CEO of Consumer, Private and Business Banking Ms Judy Hsu and Trust Bank’s CEO Mr Dwaipayan Sadhu.

from referrals from existing customers, indicating the strong level of customer endorsement as well as creating a financially sustainable customer acquisition model that it around 7 times cheaper than what is normal in the market. Trust has categorically transformed how referral programmes are perceived, delivering instant and useful everyday rewards that are easily redeemable, creating tangible value for customers all through its mobile app.

Leveraging cloud-based technologies to elevate customer experience and journey Trust is powered by a modern, cloud-native core banking platform that enables it to raise the bar for client experience and innovation by delivering

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all products to customers digitally. It also does so without the need of maintaining physical branches or being saddled with legacy systems, enabling the digital bank to control costs and realise operational efficiencies. The highly agile cloud-native platform has also enabled a range of innovations to address customer pain-points. It has also allowed Trust to rapidly scale its business, with users interacting conveniently via the App on a 24/7 basis through a secure interface. Impressively, the digital bank sustains a 100% digitally active customer base with more than 90% of customers onboarded by straight-throughprocessing (STP) and not requiring any manual intervention.

Importantly, the Trust’s technology architecture has enabled it to create a real-time user experience and offering customers an integrated rewards and referral programme that goes beyond conventional banking services. Personalised digital coupons and the fun and innovative financial management tool called “Budget Buddies” have driven strong user engagement and a market leading Apple App Store rating of 4.8.

New product development aligned with evolving client needs Trust has introduced several market-first product and service innovations that reflects its commitment to active development attuned with emerging trends. A key standout of Trust’s customer-centric approach includes the Trust credit and debit card. As the market’s first numberless credit card, it gives customers greater security. But in addition, customers use just the one card for both credit and debit transactions, switching instantly between the two in the Trust App and eliminating the need to carry multiple cards with them. Likewise, the Trust credit card enables customers to choose their repayment date and does not charge fees on foreign exchange transactions. This benefit has enabled the Trust community to save a total of more than S$6 million in bank foreign transaction

“Impressively, the digital bank sustains a 100% digitally active customer base with more than 90% of customers onboarded by straight-throughprocessing (STP) and not requiring any manual intervention.” fees compared to the fees they would normally pay on other banks’ credit cards. As a digitally-native bank, Trust is able to operate on a low-cost model and leverage its well-considered product portfolio and loyalty rewards system to effectively serve its customers. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has recognised Trust Bank as the “Best Digital Bank – Retail in South-East Asia”, and “Best Digital Bank – Retail in Singapore” at the recently concluded World Digital Bank Awards 2023.

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UnionBank of the Philippines: New digitally-based transaction banking ecosystems facilitate client journeys The pandemic has left an indelible impact on business entities both large and small in terms highlighting the importance of having key functions digitised to sustain business operations. Globally, financial institutions responded by accelerating their digital transformation journeys to support corporate, commercial and MSME clients with the requisite banking infrastructure and platforms needed to conduct their financial transactions unhindered. A key standout in this regard has been the UnionBank of the Philippines that has been consistently seeking to build innovative digital solutions to accommodate the changing requirements of its varied customer base. Developing a simplified next-gen payments platform to aid in digital advancement Consider, the launch of a Unified Payments and Collections Platform or UPAY that has augmented the digital banking capabilities of business clients by offering a real-time transaction solution, while also providing users with a comprehensive collections report. UnionBank is uniquely positioned given that it is both the platform provider and settlement bank and through the UPAY platform it is facilitating both billers and merchants by consolidating several payment channels through a single and direct integration point. Importantly, UnionBank has meaningfully addressed the existing pain points of payment gateways in the country, while utilising APIs to enhance user experience for reference validation, transaction posting and payment method capturing purposes. The white-label payment solution enables technically challenged companies to have their own payment page set-up with minimal development. Likewise, the extensive list of

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payment channels provides options to different types of payors with varied firmographics, digital competency and banking relationships. Certainly, the platform has been well received by the Bank’s clients seeking to offer a flexible and convenient online payment journey to end users generating an estimated 4,000 transactions per month. Moreover, UPAY is contributing to both new customer acquisition for UnionBank in addition to the deepening of share of wallet for transaction banking products.

Rethinking business banking by streamlining client transactions drives digital interactions In addition to UPAY, another sterling example of UnionBank’s efforts to further “Tech-Up” the Philippines has been The Portal, which has emerged as an intuitive, seamless and convenient platform for businesses during and following the pandemic. Indeed, The Portal has been instrumental in enhancing digital transactions with the Bank as the streamlined operations and

automation of manual processes has elevated the digital journey for corporates. Furthermore, The Portal’s smooth digitised onboarding process enables same day access to the platform’s extended range of services, with clients avoiding the inconvenience of having to physically visit the branch or submit paper documents. Remarkably, the automated process has reduced internal handoffs and shortened the turnaround time from two weeks to within 24 hours. Similarly, the depth of self-service functions has resulted in an improved customer experience, with faster resolution of service requests and reduced burden on the Bank’s support team. Clearly, combining the Bank’s cash management solutions onto a single platform has gained traction with clients, given that 11,000 new businesses were onboarded in 2022, reflecting a 47% year-on-

year increase. In addition, the average number of transactions conducted in 2022 alone stands at 2 million per month with a value of USD $800 million. Certainly, by keeping the client at the heart of new innovations and enhancements, the Bank has deftly registered 2 million unique logins per quarter and garnered ratings of 4.5 and 4 on the Apple Store and Google Play Stores respectively. Fundamentally, UnionBank of the Philippines has systematically strengthened its digital engagement strategy with businesses, by materially contributing to an enhanced customer experience through its respective digital platforms and solutions. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has recognised UnionBank of the Philippines for an “Outstanding Digital CX – Payments and Collection Services” and “Best Customer Experience via Mobile and Internet Banking” distinction at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

“UnionBank has meaningfully addressed the existing pain points of payment gateways in the country, while utilising APIs to enhance user experience for reference validation, transaction posting and payment method capturing purposes.”

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UOB repositioning revitalises network to drive better customer outcomes As the financial services ecosystem continues its evolution seeking the pursuit of frictionless customer experience, ensuring a seamless connectivity across all points of engagement while ensuring customer-centricity has become paramount. Client engagements have been redefined through adoption of new business models, digital innovation and collaboration with ecosystem partners in other industries to significantly elevate the quality of customer services. Players seeking the optimal engagement strategy are equally reliant on market and business intelligence to better understand their customers and facilitate successful customer journeys. In response to these fast-changing shifts that are reshaping banking, Singapore’s UOB has deftly fine-tuned its client engagement strategy by rethinking its optimal channel mix, leveraging customer insights to deepen client relationships and prioritising experiential wellness for categorical differentiation among other tier-1 lenders in market. Clearly, customer expectations are changing and within a post-pandemic environment, effective and sustainable value-creation centred is predicated on addressing both financial and non-financial needs to build more meaningful long-term customer relationships.

Enabling holistic customer wellness leveraging a data-driven approach Clearly, the pandemic has proven to be a defining moment that has materially reset client priorities and interactions with service providers across industries. To better align with this paradigm shift, UOB sought to transform the role of its branch network as being instruments of transaction but a focal point that will drive the physical, mental and emotional wellness of customers in parallel with their financial health. Effectively, the Wellness@UOB initiative enriches

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customer experience through a range of curated experiential wellness activities at revamped Wellness branches. Participants are selected based on targeted demographic profiles across various customer segments and invited by receiving relevant Wellness Insight Cards to join the various Wellness events tailored to their preferences and interest via their mobile app. Bank relationship managers and Wellness Advocates also followed up on their own conversations with relevant customers. Importantly, the Wellness@UOB program utilised interactive data visualisation and analytics to generate actionable intelligence from wellness customer survey data, comprising a sample size of 15,000 and provide the requisite personalised customer offerings comprising specific wellnessrelated activities directly aligned with customer needs. Indeed, the integrated omni-channel datadriven approach yielded up to 20,000 Wellness Insight Cards being issued, with 10,000 plus clients attending Wellness booth activities and upwards of 1,000 customers participating in monthly Wellness events. From a business impact perspective, this translated in to 1150 New-To-Bank customers being acquired, 185 customer segment upgrades and 6400 New-

To-Product unique customers. UOB also recorded a new product take-up rate of 40% with an average 1.9 new product being taken up per customer. When compared to the cohort who have not experienced any wellness engagement, the Bank registers a 29% jump in product take-up with a 14% increase in average new product taken up per customer.

Reimagining staff function, branch network and connectivity to empower customers UOB is also taking a multi-pronged approach in reskilling its front-line staff through the use of various training and assisted technologies to scale its client-facing employees and ensure they remained well-rounded in servicing customers. The Bank’s people transformation journey that commenced in 2017 is designed to reshape team capabilities by materially transforming job functions that are single-task operational or transactionalfocused to those that are multi-skilled with an emphasis on business leadership, advisory

capabilities and digital competencies. The intent is to ensure that employees are futureready, where the human touch remains an integral factor in delivering superior customer experience while also addressing the emerging gaps in consistency of service between physical and digital channels. These initiatives have ranged from the Bank’s Career Conversion Programme (CCP), Four-Pillar Competency Training Framework to the Artificial Intelligence Data Analytics Programme (AIDA) that are proving to be crucial in helping the Bank address actual business use case challenges, while strengthening and building a sustainable workforce. Likewise, UOB has emphasised the need to develop its branch network and design new branch concepts to complement its network transformation efforts, while catering to different customer segments. As branches are being revamped globally to prioritise community engagement and client advisory, UOB has also undertaken branch transformation initiatives with 54% of its branches having been

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reshaped already to better service the needs of the community. Keeping access in mind, UOB has opened 11 new branches, relocated 5 outlets and closed 10 physical locations while repurposing its branch network to better suit customer lifestyles, deliver better outcomes for clients and staff in line with broader business aspirations. Some of the newer concept branches include Hougang Satellite Branch, UOB SengKang Express and UOB High Street Wealth Centre, with the Upper Bukit Timah Branch (UBT) in Singapore a key standout as it engages in a range wellness activities including basic health screening. By streamlining its network fewer universal branches, UOB has successfully repurposed to new format branches, reducing the cost to serve while preserving franchise and brand value.

Revolutionising customer insights generation through a real-time CX platform Delivering and maintaining superior customer experience is an integral driver of business growth and UOB’s real-time CX platform has fundamentally reoriented how the Bank is collecting and assessing customer data. Given the inordinate time-lag from traditional approaches in receiving customer feedback to executing service recovery and/ or follow-up, UOB has prudently recognised the importance of utilising quality customer feedback platforms that provide timely insights on elevating customer experience, satisfaction and engagement. Moreover, given the fundamental premise of using data and analytics as a precursor for deeper and substantive data-driven conversation with clients, the Bank’s new Voice of Customers (VoC) approach involves the use of dynamic surveys tailored to the customer’s specific interaction. This aids front-line staff in not only addressing potential customer concerns but guides managers in identifying possible gaps in service delivery and performance. The data sourced is context-specific and augments the concerned branch’s responsiveness in taking remedial efforts to rectify customer painpoints. For UOB its real-time CX platform has

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“The Wellness@UOB initiative enriches customer experience through a range of curated experiential wellness activities at revamped Wellness branches.”

paid dividends with the Bank registering a 35x increase in customer engagement levels and generated customer insights further leading to service refinements at the branch. Fundamentally, increased customer engagement levels coupled with continuous customer feedback and democratisation of customer insights has further empowered bank staff in designing more effective customer journeys and providing opportunities for sustained business process improvements. With branches now owning their data insights and staff authorised to autonomously take corrective measures as needed, the real-time information and dashboards has enabled management and staff to be more proactive and responsive.

Orchestrating sustained customer engagement through UOB TMRW’s unique service delivery model UOB TMRW in Thailand has further extended client interactions by leveraging its deep understanding of customers and incorporating personalisation across the entire suite of banking solutions delivered through its omnichannel platform in a personalised, simple and transparent manner. Indeed, the UOB TMRW App has elevated digital servicing by using the chatbot to enhance the customer service offering a self-service option, FAQ response and agent support through voice or chat. Importantly, customers can seamlessly transition between different components of the service model, within the same interface,

depending on need and urgency. Likewise, the TMRW Intelligent Assistant’s (TIA) routing capability facilitates the live agent to pickup the conversation, following handover from the bot, reducing the resolution time and friction for the client. This has categorically contributed to UOB TMRW’s live chat agents consistently realising a first contact resolution rate of above 80%. Similarly, 74% of onboarding related conversational interactions are resolved by TIA before even requiring escalation to a human agent, with the number of live chat conversations have decreased by 96% following launch, providing context to the 300,000 plus customers acquired digitally in 2022. Consider, TIA’s handling of an average 45,000 user interactions per month, which has resulted in a sustained 4.13 turns per conversation coupled with an unintended escalation rate of less than 5% consolidating user engagement. The overall 57% chatbot resolution rate is making TIA’s performance a benchmark for chatbots among peers in Thailand. In addition, the App’s asynchronous chat feature enables an “instant messaging platform” style where clients can submit an enquiry and revisit once a response has been generated. Its implementation has contributed a reduction by 42 seconds of the live chat average handling time

(AHT), while driving NPS score to 33 (from 27) within one month of its launch. Furthermore, the WalkME feature augments the digital servicing journey through identification of customer pain points and providing relevant user guidance to drive action to minimise the need for customer support. A key outcome has been Personetics Cards that allow the digital Bank to deliver personalised insights based on order of importance per login. These bite-sized custom insights based on transaction and spend patterns help supporting clients with account management and are being roundly endorsed by users with the average rating of the insight cards standing at 4.14 (out of 5) as of February 2023. Certainly, UOB is purposefully creating new business and branch models complemented with emerging technologies that has helped the Bank in its differentiation strategy among peers. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has recognised UOB for the “Best Customer Insights Initiative”, “Best Hybrid Customer Experience – Branch” and a Highly Acclaimed “Excellence in Omni-Channel Customer Experience” and UOB Thailand for “Best Customer Insights Initiative – Virtual Banking” at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

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Standard Chartered Saadiq: Unlocking new value and halal opportunities for clients Standard Chartered Saadiq Malaysia (“the Bank”), the Islamic banking arm of Standard Chartered, has uniquely positioned itself as a provider of innovative Shariah-compliant banking solutions within the country. Following its inception in 2007, the Bank has continued to scale its offerings across core verticals including retail, SME, corporate and institutional banking, providing a competitive mix of Islamic products delivered through a variety of channels targeted to all customer segments. Indeed, the Bank’s intent is demonstrated by “leading the way in Islamic banking” through world-class solutions that fulfil the financial needs of clients in Malaysia and leveraging the broader international Islamic banking network based in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Importantly, the Bank has prioritised the enhancement of digital client experience through a range of initiatives that has enabled it to effectively differentiate itself from its peers in an advanced and mature Islamic banking market such as Malaysia.

Developing digital solutions with a focus on wealth management and deposits Consider the Online Unit Trust digital platform that facilitates the Bank’s clients in managing their investment portfolios on a continuous basis, while providing them with access to more than 250 mutual funds. Likewise, LiveFX allows users to source comprehensive FX market updates, price charts and related technical analysis to conveniently capture opportunities in foreign currency transactions. Furthermore, the Bank has rolled out a digital onboarding facility for Islamic Current or Savings Account holders that leverages both face-to-face and non-face-to-face digital onboarding, providing

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a simplified and convenient option for the Bank’s existing and new clients. In addition, clients can opt for a Takaful (Islamic insurance) subscription via the iPad with the entire application process being completely paperless. The Bank has driven considerable traction among its client base with an estimated 65% being active digital users and recording a sustained year-onyear increase in the number of transactions being performed digitally. In addition, the SC Mobile Banking App has garnered 4.4- and 3.5-star rating on Apple iOS and Google Play stores respectively.

Reinforcing the Islamic economy, halal industry and financial literacy Moreover, with the growing awareness of “halal tayyab”, evaluating the entire supply chain of a permissible business through the lens of Shariah compliance becomes imperative. The Bank responded by introducing the Shariah-compliant Halal360 initiative that supports local businesses to thrive within the global ecosystem. In particular, financial incentives offered to halal SME exporters include attractive FX rates, preferential pricing on deposit products and favourable terms on business instalment financing programs. This provides good encouragement for

“Indeed, the Bank’s intent is demonstrated by “leading the way in Islamic banking” through world-class solutions that fulfil the financial needs of clients in Malaysia.”

halal entities to operate in conformity with the tenets of Islam on an end-to-end basis. Likewise, the Bank prudently supported the Malaysia International Halal Showcase (MIHAS) as one of the collaborative partners to facilitate the Islamic economy and sustainable supply chains. In that respect, the Bank is well-positioned given the depth of its Shariah-compliant trade finance solutions that can drive global expansion and encourage the development of more resilient supply chains. The Bank’s additional community engagement efforts included its financial literacy program designed for individuals and SMEs, with the sole purpose of capacity building and nurturing

of small business owners. Certainly, there is a push for business models that are both ethical and responsible in nature which are capable of generating a positive and sustainable impact for all stakeholders with the Bank playing its due role. Fundamentally, the Bank has proven to be a critical pillar of the Standard Chartered Malaysia franchise where Standard Chartered Malaysia was voted top three bank in Forbes’ World’s Best Banks 2023 Survey on the back of its excellence in digital services, customer service and wealth advisory. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has recognised Standard Chartered Saadiq Berhad for the “Best Islamic Bank for Digital CX in Malaysia” at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

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Banking Reinvented through the Lens of Generative AI As the digital age accelerates, artificial intelligence (AI) continues to take centre stage in technological advancements, especially in the financial sector. One subset of AI, generative AI, is particularly gaining momentum and promises to reshape the front, middle and back office of the banking industry. This article delves into the concept of generative AI, its growing importance in banking, various applications, and the inherent risks involved. The Importance and Relevance of Generative AI in Banking Generative AI refers to algorithms that can produce new data samples by identifying patterns from existing data. It encapsulates the essence of machines thinking and acting creatively, generating content such as text, images, audio, and even code. The most notable examples include the large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, which, within

a short span of its introduction, has influenced a variety of sectors, including banking. These AI models don’t just analyse data; they create new data, often mirroring and even surpassing human capabilities. The banking sector, traditionally driven by numbers and data, finds itself at an inflection point. The convergence of vast amounts of data and the

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capabilities of generative AI provides an opportunity for banks to enhance efficiency, accuracy, and customer experience. AI’s profound impacts on banking are already evident: reduced costs, accelerated revenue growth, and enhanced contact centre processes. Goldman Sachs, for instance, has started utilising generative AI to aid its software developers in code-writing and testing.1 Furthermore, in the area of fraud detection and prevention, generative AI offers an exciting potential in identifying and mitigating fraudulent activities. Through continuous analysis of vast data sets and identification of patterns indicative of fraudulent behaviour, AI-driven systems can swiftly detect anomalies, safeguarding both the financial institution and its patrons from potential threats. This heightened level of security not only minimises financial losses but also fortifies trust amongst customers, ensuring the sanctity of their financial data. The integration of advanced AI models, as seen with FinTech startup Stripe’s collaboration with the latest GPT-4 AI model2, underscores the industry’s recognition of generative AI’s potential. This partnership not only aims to boost fraud detection and natural language processing capabilities but also enhance customer support, signifying the transformative potential of AI in the sector.

Generative AI’s Application and UseCases Generative AI’s applications in banking are vast and varied: 1.

Retail Banking and Wealth: Generative AI can be harnessed to train models for know-yourcustomer (KYC) processes during account openings. It also powers natural language models, refining virtual assistants to understand and serve customers better. SMB Banking: For small to medium businesses, generative AI can sift through non-numerical loan application data, such as business plans, providing insights and facilitating quicker loan processing.

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“The convergence of vast amounts of data and the capabilities of generative AI provides an opportunity for banks to enhance efficiency, accuracy, and customer experience.”

Commercial Banking: Generative AI can expedite back-office tasks, answering performance-related queries in real-time. It can also aid in scenario analysis under varying economic conditions, giving banks a predictive edge.

Investment Banking and Capital Markets: Stress-testing scenarios for illiquid financial products becomes more efficient with generative AI. This ensures proper compliance measures are in place and costs are optimised.

Generative AI also promises advancements in fraud support, personalised offers, virtual assistant responses, and wealth planning. For instance, AI can synthesise data to train algorithms for fraud detection, enhancing accuracy and speed. Similarly, individualised offers with images and natural language can be tailored for each customer, creating a unique banking experience.

Navigating through the Risks and Constraints While the prospects are thrilling, generative AI is not without its challenges. Banks need to tread cautiously, considering the legal, ethical, and reputational risks involved. For instance, Italy’s brief ban on ChatGPT and JPMorgan’s restriction

on its use highlight the global reservations about unchecked AI applications. Some challenges include: •

Model Hallucinations: LLM models might provide authoritative-sounding answers even when unsure, potentially leading to misinformation.

•

“Black Box” Thinking: It might be challenging to interpret or understand the outputs of AI models, making transparency a concern.

•

Biased Training Data: AI outputs depend on the quality of source data. Any human-bias in the input data can get amplified in the outputs, leading to skewed or biased results.

Furthermore, synthesised data used in loan decisioning might be challenging to explain and audit, potentially making it non-compliant. The

“Banks need to tread cautiously, considering the legal, ethical, and reputational risks involved.”

unpredictable nature of financial markets also makes it difficult to train trading algorithms reliably using generative AI. As generative AI continues its rise in the banking sector, institutions need to strike a balance between leveraging its potential and being cautious of the inherent risks. With responsible and strategic implementation, the future of banking, powered by AI, looks promising, if not totally transformative.

1 - Breaking barriers: Exploring how banks scale generative AI for growth – Accenture 2 - Ibid.

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HSBC Singapore: Redefining digital wealth by empowering the customer HSBC Singapore firmly believes in empowering customers to bank securely anytime and anywhere either via the app or its online banking platform and aspiration to become the region’s leading and pre-eminent wealth manager. This has taken on increased urgency given the critical role being played by digitalisation, especially within the wealth management landscape, which is proving to be a key differentiator among institutions and a core driver for long-term customer engagement. Building wealth resilience today for growth tomorrow

Diversification being made better by technology and people

Recognising this imperative, HSBC Singapore has been systematically expanding and deepening its digital wealth offerings with an increased emphasis on reliability, while keeping in mind the broader consideration for ensuring that tailored solutions must provide clients with the requisite tools and vehicles for portfolio preservation and investment growth.

Moreover, taking advantage of the open banking initiative in Singapore, HSBC’s FinConnect solution has enabled customers to consolidate their financial data from other institutions and government agencies all within the mobile app. By leveraging classification data from partners powered by API and cloud technologies, the Portfolio Analysis feature provides clients with a detailed breakdown of their holdings by sector, geography and asset class. Essentially, Portfolio Analysis offers a personalised analysis of a customer’s financial portfolio and a deeper understanding of portfolio composition.

Importantly, the Bank prioritised development of new features to augment the existing wealth customer journey by balancing both efficiency and insight. Examples of its digital enhancements range from being able to open a current or savings or investment account, investing in unit trusts or conducting foreign exchange transactions, evaluating investment holdings and/ or transferring money internationally all through the mobile app. The overall experience is further enriched by the SG Chat platform, which provides clients with a personalised and secure, on-the-go, chat channel for comprehensive support and valuable advice from their relationship manager, service managers and investment specialists regarding various banking and financial investment products/services offered by HSBC Singapore.

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This has further augmented the client’s visibility on the existing level of diversification of their portfolio and taking immediate and direct investment action if required, with recourse for further discussion through a request for callback, with the assigned relationship manager should expert advice be needed. Similarly, the currency toggle helps customers to easily switch between viewing their holding in a consolidated view under SGD and/or up to 80 different respective currencies catering to the needs of internationally diversified portfolios. The opportunity for clients to independently work towards their financial goals and/or in conjunction

with the guidance of their relationship managers all via the mobile app is contributing to the 12% YoY growth of the Bank’s digitally active customer base.

Facilitating clients with mobile-based solutions for effective investment management Furthermore, key digital initiatives launched by the Bank such as the HSBC Unit Trust on Mobile (UTM) and its Structured Products Online Platform reflect the institution’s mobile-first strategy. UTM has been categorical in elevating the digital investment experience of clients through its trading capabilities, seamless online user journey, curated list of investment funds, and ongoing education of key investment concepts. UTM’s fund filtering function that accounts for diverse themes such as ESG and the fund details page are providing customers with a broader investment universe aligned with their preferences and requisite information for more informed decision making. In addition, with new investment selection now possible in five simple steps and existing holdings positions modified by ‘one tap’, trading execution is 3x faster through mobile than via the browser. Resultingly, HSBC Singapore has

recorded a migration of users to mobile with both transactions and volumes as a proportion of total digital trades growing at 2.5x and 2x respectively during the February-December 2022 period. Likewise, the Bank’s introduction of swifter notification updates pertaining to structured note events has ensured that clients are agile enough to react to changing market environments in a methodical manner. The automated international notification received in each customer’s personal internet banking inbox facilitates clients on the status of their exposures. Similarly, designated relationship managers have greater visibility on client positions making timely investment monitoring possible and providing customers with more holistic advice. HSBC Singapore through its continued investments in technology and digital enhancements has truly demonstrated superior digital CX for its Singapore clients. Affirming its institutional achievements, The Digital Banker has duly recognised HSBC Singapore for “Outstanding Digital CX – Mobile Banking”, “Outstanding Digital CX – Internet Banking”, “Outstanding Digital CX – Mortgage Product” and “Best Digital CX – Account Opening and Customer Onboarding” at the recently concluded Digital CX Awards 2023.

“HSBC Singapore has been systematically expanding and deepening its digital wealth offerings with an increased emphasis on reliability.” The Digital Banker | Issue 2 | 2023 89

UPCOMING AWARDS Submissions Deadline:

Submissions Deadline:

15 DECEMBER 2023

2 FEBRUARY 2024

9 FEBRUARY 2024

29 FEBRUARY 2024

Gala:

29 FEBRUARY 2024

25 APRIL 2024

2 MAY 2024

23 MAY 2024

Submissions Deadline:

27 MARCH 2024

12 APRIL 2024

24 MAY 2024

7 JUNE 2024

Gala:

6 JUNE 2024

27 JUNE 2024

1 AUGUST 2024

22 AUGUST 2024

Submissions Deadline:

28 JUNE 2024

12 JULY 2024

2 AUGUST 2024

Gala:

5 SEPTEMBER 2024

19 SEPTEMBER 2024

24 OCTOBER 2024

Organised by:

SCAN HERE TO KNOW MORE 90 The Digital Banker | Issue 2 | 2023

Disclaimer: Please note that we do all we can to ensure accuracy and timeliness of the information presented herein but errors may still understandably occur in some cases. If you believe that a serious inaccuracy has been made, please email nirav@digitalbankeronline.com. This report is provided for information purposes only. The Digital Banker accepts no responsibility whatsoever for any direct or indirect losses arising from the use of this report or its contents.

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