UOB banks on trust and technology

THE role of banks as "trusted custodians" of customers' financial needs must not be understated, even with the emergence of digital banking alternatives today. One key priority for UOB as it strengthens its regional digital brand and rollout of progressive solutions, therefore, is to scale with speed while ensuring the security of its underlying infrastructure, says the bank's head of group technology and operations Susan Hwee.

"I don't think we should underplay the importance of our role as a 'trusted partner' to customers. We are trusted to take care of their financial needs, whether it is to protect and grow their wealth or to be a custodian of their assets.

"That trust is hard to replicate in a fully digital relationship. As an omni-channel bank, we don't take the trust given to us lightly and do all we can to preserve it across all of our touchpoints," she says.

Omni-channel approach reinforces trust

UOB prides itself on its "omni-channel" approach with targeted, personalised digital engagement as well as physical touchpoints.

While the bank has seen success with the launch of its TMRW digital bank in Thailand and Indonesia over the last two-and-a-half years, customers in these emerging markets have also said that they still value the presence of UOB's physical network.

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"What customers are telling us is that they like the fact that we do have branches, that we have a contact centre that they can call, because that builds a deeper level of trust. If they come across an issue, they can speak to someone for help," Hwee says.

"So even though they may rarely use the physical touchpoints, they feel comforted that there is actually a human behind it. Especially for more complex financial transactions, a human relationship offers the value of connection and trust."

From 2014 to 2019, UOB invested S$2 billion to enhance the quality and robustness of its digital infrastructure and services across its key markets in Asean and China.

Now, it is investing another S$500 million to boost digital capabilities across Asean, as it aims to more than double digital retail customers by 2026 to over seven million across the region.

This investment will be used to scale up digital acquisition and API (application programming interface) partners, as well as improve its customer value proposition through new digital initiatives, hyper-personalisation and self-serve products.

'Hyper-personalisation to the extreme'

As part of its innovation drive, UOB was the first bank in the region to develop a new business model focused on customer engagement when it launched TMRW, ASEAN's first digital bank in 2019.

TMRW now contributes 11 per cent and 29 per cent to UOB's retail customer franchise in Thailand and Indonesia respectively, the bank said in September. One key to its success in these markets is "hyper-personalisation to the extreme", as Hwee puts it.

In Thailand, for example, TMRW was launched in March 2019 in the national language and adapted to local regulations. New users could be onboarded digitally via kiosks at train stations using their digital identities. The first iteration of TMRW was built in only 14 months.

"It's a full stack bank, including features from service centres to chatbots, remote onboarding, and full payment capabilities. So it's a fully fledged bank, not a minimum viable product," Hwee says.

Each user is presented with a super hyper menu of functions that are customised to their preferences and usage habits, she adds.

The TMRW platform was customised for its Indonesia launch in August 2020. Because the country did not use digital identities in a similar manner to Thailand, UOB worked with Indonesia's regulators to deploy video conferencing to onboard new customers.

In Singapore, just last month, UOB brought together the innovation of TMRW with the scale and product depth of its mobile app UOB Mighty on one platform - UOB TMRW, to offer hyper-personalised services to a broad spectrum of customers.

Integral to UOB's hyper-personalisation strategy is the bank's focus on data and the value of analysing complex data sets to generate insights for its customers. For example, the bank's recently launched Rewards+ programme on UOB TMRW taps on its proprietary digital engagement engine, which uses artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analytics to personalise the reward experience for each customer.

For its corporate clients, it recently launched UOB Infinity, a digital banking platform, in Singapore and China to provide a distinctive and consistent digital experience across all devices, whether through the app or on a Web browser.

Building tech talent

As the bank continues to digitalise and to build up its tech bench strength, it is also important to make sure the tech and business functions are communicating with each other.

"The tech space needs to understand business, and the business has to understand tech, so that we can achieve an operating model enabled by technology," Hwee says.

In terms of strengthening its tech talent pool, she reiterated the importance of recruiting security specialists as well as "digital natives".

"Here, I'm not referring to the users, but bringing in people who enjoy digital technology. These range from product engineers to product owners, agile squads and tribes, and various development practices," she says.

"Working with our business functions, we need to be thinking about how we create user stories and user journeys and so on, and how to build various digital capabilities at scale."

This is where banks can take a leaf from tech companies, Hwee says. "The thing that we can learn from these tech platforms is how they create their customers' journeys, as well as adapt to stay relevant and responsive. This is not just about UI/UX (user interface and user experience) design, but making the whole customer journey as seamless as possible. That is one of the biggest lessons we can take from these companies, whether they are our competitors or ecosystem partners."