In a world's first, Singaporeans get aggregated view of finances across banks

SINGAPORE has launched the world's first system that allows its citizens to consolidate their financial information across seven major banks and relevant government agencies.

This comes amid a national push for more effective financial planning.

"We must empower individuals to be able to plan for their own finances," Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), told The Business Times in an interview.

"What we're saying is that personal financial information belongs to the customer, the customer can give consent to bring his own information together, and ask a regulated service provider to provide advice."

Known as the Singapore Financial Data Exchange (SGFinDex), it enables Singaporeans to use their SingPass to retrieve their personal financial information - such as deposits, credit cards, loans, and investments - from participating banks; and other information such as HDB loans and CPF balances from government agencies, said the MAS, the Smart Nation and Digital Government Group (SNDGG), and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) in a joint statement on Monday.

The participating banks are DBS, OCBC, UOB, Standard Chartered, Citi, HSBC and Maybank. Data that can be retrieved from public agencies via MyInfo include CPF account balances, HDB loan balance and monthly loan instalment, and yearly assessable income from the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore.

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Each financial planning application or website will have their own display interface of the consolidated data.

This service will be opened up to all regulated financial institutions - including digital banks - but excludes Big Tech firms that are not regulated wholly as financial firms.

Mr Menon told BT that with the arrival of digital banks, incumbents are going to fight very hard for the financial planning business.

In the next phase of SGFinDex, individuals will be able to access information on their insurance policies held with insurers and their holdings of stocks at the Central Depository.

MAS, SNDGG and ABS said SGFinDex is the world's first public digital infrastructure to use a national digital identity, SingPass, and a centrally-managed online consent system to enable individuals to access all their financial information on one platform.

This liberalisation, a concept termed "Open Banking" in Europe, comes amid a recognition that Singaporeans need a seamless, consolidated view of their assets and liabilities, in part so they can plan for their sunset years. Singaporeans' life expectancy in 2019 was at 83.6 years.

Before SGFinDex, individuals would have to manually collate their finances, while service providers would need to establish bilateral connections with individual data sources to obtain data. Such fragmented information has been widely touted as a key painpoint that impedes financial planning.

In a statement, Mr Menon said: "Today, our personal financial information is fragmented across multiple entities, and we often take financial decisions - like making an investment or buying a house - without a holistic view of our financial situation."

Having a more aggregated view of one's personal balance sheet will allow individuals to better identify potential gaps and take active steps to improve their financial health.

SGFinDex will take users through a two-step process - connecting banks to the central infrastructure and requesting data retrieval from these banks.

MAS, SNDGG and ABS stressed that SGFinDex will only transmit but not store any personal financial data. Financial data can be retrieved only through explicit consent of the individual, whose identity must be verified through SingPass. All data transmitted through SGFinDex is encrypted, and can be read only on the financial planning applications receiving the data.

The Ministry of Manpower and GovTech have developed a digital financial planning service, MyMoneySense, that leverages SGFinDex to provide Singaporeans with more comprehensive financial planning guidance.

Several participating banks have also tapped onto SGFinDex to offer similar services to their customers via their respective financial advisory tools.

"SGFinDex empowers the individual to consolidate his financial information for a comprehensive view of his portfolio, and use digital tools like MyMoneySense to make better financial decisions. It is a tangible expression of harnessing digital technology to enhance the financial well-being of Singaporeans," said Mr Menon.

For banks and other financial institutions, Singapore's move to liberalise the financial sector is set to spur more equal and transparent competition within the ecosystem.

Evy Wee, DBS head of financial planning and personal investing, told BT: "If equal customer-consented data is granted to all participants in SGFinDex, it boils down to each institution's ability to add value in terms of guidance and advice around financial and retirement planning."

Ng Chee Khern, permanent secretary at the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office, said: "The government can play a role in building the platforms and frameworks for data sharing and digital collaboration, so that companies and public agencies may create new services, and better meet the needs of citizens and businesses. SGFinDex is a case in point."

Samuel Tsien, ABS chairman and group CEO of OCBC, said: "ABS and the seven participating banks are pleased to have participated in the world's first public-private partnership in building a public digital infrastructure, that is underpinned by a national digital identity and online consent framework, to help our customers manage their finances holistically."

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