DBS wins Digital Transformation Award

Nisha Ramchandani

Published Sun, Jun 21, 2020 · 03:03 PM

DBS has been named the inaugural winner of the Digital Transformation Award in the Hackett Group's Digital Awards 2020, marking the first time a Singapore company has been recognised in the Hackett Group's awards.

The bank was also a finalist in the Automation - Artificial Intelligence category, for its Joy Corporate Banking Chat Bot.

In selecting DBS, strategic consultancy Hackett Group highlighted that the bank is transforming multiple aspects of its business, using automation, analytics and artificial intelligence technologies, which has served it well as the pandemic changed the business environment.

For instance, through its analytics-based Operations Resource Management (ORM) tool, the bank was able to derive additional insight on the number of staff needed for optimal efficiency, and suggested overtime hours to support volume surges in different business areas. This was applied was in its SME operations, allowing it to make available more than S$1.1 billion in loans to micro- and small-enterprise customers during the pandemic, even as the majority of DBS staff worked from home.

Piyush Gupta, chief executive officer of DBS Bank, said: "Covid-19 has demonstrated the value of our digitalisation efforts, both in respect of customers as well as employees. For our customers, our digital onboarding and transaction capabilities allowed easy access across products such as payments, trade, equity trading and investing. This resulted in above-market increases in volumes, and allowed us to be the principal channel for the government to activate several relief programmes."

He added: "For employees, easy remote working, AI-driven contact tracing and sensor-led social distancing created safety and trust. We hope to retain our leadership in these areas in a post-Covid world."