DBS aims to bring investment analytics to the masses

IN A MOVE to encourage better personal finance habits, DBS has rolled out a new digital advisory tool that helps customers consolidate and analyse their overall finances, as well as provide more personalised financial information tailored to their current life stage. 

The tool includes investment analytics that were only until recently just reserved for private banking clients.

Against that backdrop, the bank's latest NAV Planner - launched on its mobile and Internet banking platforms about a month ago - serves to "equalise everyone from an information perspective" with the help of big data and technology, DBS head of consumer banking Jeremy Soo told The Business Times in an interview. 

The NAV Planner is an upgraded version of DBS' Your Financial GPS tool first launched in May 2018.  In the latest edition, the bank has identified seven typical streams on what customers do with their money. The first-phase launch will focus on three streams: budgeting and savings; protection that includes insurance; and investments. 

DBS/POSB customers will be able to manage their finances around these three streams, and see how a decision made in one stream can potentially affect outcomes in others.

Mr Soo told BT while there are a breadth of products and services offered by insurers, brokerages and wealth management firms, financial information is "still held in silos", even with digitalisation.  

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"In terms of getting information, you still have to look for experts. It's quite opaque, not many people know where, how, or when to go for insurance products (for example). Those who wish to review their overall finances either need to manually consolidate their holdings or look to their financial advisors to do so for them. Others who are not subscribed to these services are inadvertently left out," said Mr Soo. 

With the NAV Planner, customers' data are being updated in real time as their financial positions evolve over different life stages. This means the bank will be able to use such data to provide personalised recommendations on financial products.

The guided advisory tool will help customers get started on their insurance and investments needs - which traditionally require face-to-face consultations - by computing whether the user has adequate protection coverage or funds to put towards investments based on their current stage in life. 

"If you're at a stage where you have obtained some awareness on investments, the market value, market pricing will also be reflected (on the Nav Planner) to give you some sense on where you are standing today," said Mr Soo. 

By availing the NAV Planner on the bank's mobile and Internet banking platforms, Mr Soo said its accessibility will encourage more customers - even university students and new-to-workforce customers - to begin their financial planning with the bank.

More than 300,000 DBS/POSB customers have accessed their personalised balance sheets with the NAV Planner, of which more than 30 per cent are new to digital financial planning. Some 1.5 million customers have used the original Your Financial GPS tool, of which around 450,000 are active users. The bank has around 5 million customers. 

Amid the novel coronavirus outbreak, the NAV Planner came as a timely launch as it had helped uncover fresh consumer insights in this period of crisis, said Evy Wee, DBS head of financial planning and personal investing.

Within the first month of launch, the number of users interested in learning about products with a protection cover - which would typically involve insurance-linked products - grew eight times, compared with the number of users totalled in the full year of 2019. Similarly, the number of customers who were interested in investments grew three times over the same period, Ms Wee told BT. 

"Have we not had this platform, it will take years for us to uncover that there's actually a latent lack of knowledge, where people don't know what they don't know," Mr Soo added.

He further noted that most people tend to only engage with their finances on an "episodic" basis, that is, when they need to make important money decisions. "This is something we would like to course-correct." 

To do that, the NAV Planner allows users to better visualise how smaller, day-to-day financial decisions can lead to a bigger impact on longer-term financial goals, such as purchasing a home or accumulating a retirement nest egg.

"We believe that helping our customers review their smaller everyday financial decisions will stand them in good stead and protect their finances against a drain from unexpected volatilities, such as the current pandemic," said Mr Soo.