In wooing customers, banks find a wingman in fintechs

"THAT's the hardest part: to let go." So summed up an OCBC banker this month, in setting out the relationship between banks and their customers in the years ahead.

The backdrop to the comment was the bank's recent open call to software developers to use OCBC's set of code, known as APIs (application programming interfaces), that would help to link a third-party application to that of the bank. The broader implication was that collaborations between banks and fintechs are expected to ramp up in the months ahead.

The reality is that the relationship between banks and customers has not been as romantic as bankers would like it to be perceived.