Singapore start-ups soar with OCBC support
Samuel Tsien, OCBC
OCBC Bank’s fintech accelerator programme, the Open Vault, will pilot tests with three start-ups – Fincast, BondIT and CogniCor.
The tests involve wealth management and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions and will begin in the fourth quarter of this year, and will last for three months.
Samuel Tsien, OCBC Bank’s group CEO, says: “Deploying these solutions will involve changing the way we do things. They may even require us to adjust our business model, and we are entirely happy to embrace ‘disruption’ of this kind too.”
The first is a portfolio management tool called Fincast. Once a customer’s wealth goals are keyed in; the software “cuts down” the amount of time required to manually analyse a customer’s investment projections. OCBC will pilot this platform at its “premier banking” branches for up to 100 customers.
The second wealth management tool, BondIT, will enable Bank of Singapore relationship managers to provide service to customers with investment portfolios focused on bonds.
Lastly, OCBC will pilot a new virtual customer service agent – powered by CogniCor – on its home loans webpage to address initial queries from customers interested in OCBC’s home loans. This gives customers an alternative digital avenue to contact OCBC.
The Open Vault
Eight start-ups in total were involved in the Open Vault. They had mentorship sessions with OCBC senior management and business leaders, as well as workshops to understand regulatory demands in the banking industry and how to secure investment interest.
Three of the eight start-ups were also able to use OCBC Bank’s data sandbox to trial their technologies in a “secure” environment.
As part of their “graduating ceremony”, the start-ups will make a business pitch to an invited group of private equity firms and private banking clients to secure follow-on partnerships and funding.
The Open Vault was launched in February 2016 and is housed in a “specially-created” 2,400 square foot (223 square metre) space on New Bridge Road, Singapore.
