5 digital moves OCBC bank is leading in customer experience innovation

Customers these days are so spoiled by technology: take Uber, the app frees you from worrying about having cash or credit card when taking cab and even lets you enjoy your own personalized Spotify playlist in Uber cars. Well, that, together with Google, Facebook etc… and their lightning-speed innovations have made the customer experience so intimate and effortless that when you have to call a bank to request for a late payment charge waiver or sit with an insurance agent for hours to learn about an insurance product, you suddenly find the financial sector…digitally obsolete. Realizing this threat, financial institutions around the region are going digital for a better customer experience, and OCBC seems to lead the race with the following 5 digital moves:

• Go Mobile: With about 40 percent of Asian mass affluent customers now prefer online or mobile banking, the banks in the region have caught up with the mobile migration with various banking transaction mobile applications. On top of main banking transaction apps, OCBC Pay Anyone even allows customers to pay using phone number, email or Facebook. The insurance counterparts also provide ease for customer when buying or learning about insurance with apps like NTUC income and Prudential’s What’s your number. Besides the apps, a mobile friendly website with content fit into various screen-size is also critical as customer are using multiple devices on the go now.

• Go Game: Gamification, an approach widely adopted in Americas and Europe, is still fairly new in Asia. The concept uses a game to engage customers in solving problems and increase their knowledge on a non-game topic. It works exceptionally well for financial products education, which is normally considered a boring experience. It also boots online engagement, online banking use, product sales, and social influence . PlayMooLah by OCBC Singapore has gained some traction in educating kids making better financial decision and achieving different dynamic outcomes of various saving plans.
• Go Peer: when it comes to complicated products such as insurance or investment, many people feel more comfortable looking at what their peers are doing. OCBC pioneered in Singapore to integrate the “People Like You” function into the personal banking page to help customers benchmark themselves against peers in terms of assets, liability, spending on shopping, dining, etc. It will be, however, much more beneficial if OCBC goes further and answers “So what?” to provide advices on how much one should save or invest.
• Go Social: As nearly 70% of wealthy investors altered relationships with investment providers or reallocated investments based on the content they found on social media, many banks / insurers are speaking and answering directly to customers on Facebook / Twitter, etc. OCBC even goes further by allowing people to pay via Facebook. Going social also opens up a huge data analytics opportunity from deeper customer behavior understanding. Brands just need to watch out for the risks of compliance, security and privacy and manage a positive image on these networks.

• Go Hybrid: at the end of the (current) day, customers are still (reluctantly) going to a branch for transactions that are digitally impossible such as consultation on complicated financial products, or withdrawal of big cash amount. Digital transformation can certainly excite them: DBS Remix and Frank by OCBC (see cover image) are the latest efforts to attract Gen Y from the renown Singapore banks: they set up the branch in a retail-store concept with touch screen information booth, digitablets and row of laptops for their customers to go online.

As people in Asia Pacific are spending up to half of their awake time online, at any second lagging behind on digital customer experience transformation, financial service providers are running a huge risk of client migration to competitors. Nonetheless, one cannot afford a silo development of digital initiatives, only with a proper execution of Design Thinking approach aligning with overarching business strategy and customer understanding, the digital innovation can become meaningful and beneficial to customers.

What are other digital initiatives that you think deserve a shout-out in the financial sector? Or do you think OCBC is leading on this front among Singapore local banks? Please comment and share your thoughts below!

Victor is currently Senior Regional Manager at Lazada Group, the #1 online shopping site in SEA, leading the brand strategy research. He is also on a mission to strengthen the online brand presence for 9 Yards Innovation, a consulting start-up designs meaningful experience for customers and employees.

He used to be a business and digital strategy at  Deloitte Consulting.  Follow him on Twitter @victorvu84.