It's All About The People

“I love tea, and there are several spots around my office that I frequent. One of them is Old Tea Hut, which does a really good local specialty tea, but for that one can expect a long, snaking queue through the day.” Before the outlet got on DBS FasTrack, Mr. Seow says it was impossible for him to buy his morning tea without waiting in line for at least 15 to 20mins. “Now I can order and pay for my favorite teh-C on the app, which would be ready for collection in the short three minutes I take to walk from my office, and beat the queue.”

Banking security for customers has always been of utmost importance, Mr. Seow declares. “We are committed to providing a secure, safe, and simple experience for our customers who use e-payment options and as these options become ubiquitous in Singapore.

“To protect our customers, we have put in place robust fraud deterrence controls like transaction signing, limit management, and SMS/email alerts. Since 2010, we have also offered our ‘Money Safe Guarantee’,” which offers protection against unauthorized transactions, and gives customers a greater peace of mind when making e-payments and banking online.

Thriving In Innovation and Disruption

Technology has driven the tremendous growth of the credit cards business, with a large number of daily business transactions cashless and completed with e-wallets. “E-commerce, by far, has the largest impact on our cards business,” Mr. Seow shares. The e-commerce market in Asia Pacific is the largest in the world, and it is just taking off, he adds. “And mobile commerce or ‘m-commerce’, now preferred by one-third of online shoppers in Singapore, is set to become the preferred channel for consumers.”

The rapid rise in online shopping has transformed the way consumers select and pay for purchases. Many choose to pay via credit or debit cards for convenience. At the same time, Mr. Seow points out, doing so allows them to accumulate reward points and perks when spending. This translates to a huge boost in card transaction volumes, which is further compounded by Online-to-Offline (O2O) retail offerings. A prime example of O2O is ride-hailing companies such as Grab, which offers consumers a variety of payment methods, including credit and debit cards, or via mobile wallet.

Consumers have also taken to contactless payments as a more convenient way to pay for small-ticket items. Today, five in 10 face-to-face transactions in Singapore are contactless transactions, Mr. Seow says. “We expect this number to grow, as more consumers will prefer to use contactless payments for low-value purchases as evidenced by the drop in average ticket size for contactless transactions.”

With the rise in the use of card payments, Mr. Seow believes it is all the more important for their customers to have a seamless payment experience that goes beyond the act of simply paying for purchases. “We have already been tapping on data analytics in our card business for 25 years, and now with richer data derived from e-payment transactions, and data from other sources, we can do a lot more,” he emphasizes.

Mr. Seow adds that one of the ways to do more is to expand payments partnerships and channels in order to provide an entire ecosystem of options to meet consumers and merchants’ diverse payment needs and preferences. For example, he says, they collaborate with partners like ApplePay, and develop new services and apps such as DBS Lifestyle that blends financial services (e.g. tracking of expenses, bills) into the lifestyle needs of their customers. “This way, we create convenience for our customers by becoming invisible and seamlessly embedding banking services into day-to-day life.

A Credible Reality

Mr. Seow does not see the dawning of a cashless economy as a remote idea, particularly in Singapore, which is ahead of its Southeast Asian neighbors in cashless transactions. A relatively higher-banked population, with a high adoption of card, contactless, mobile, and electronic payments is fuelling the transition. “However, as a developed nation that aims to become a Smart Nation, we should be benchmarking globally to countries that have taken to cashless transactions,” he emphasizes. “From that perspective, we have a lot of headroom to improve when it comes to the widespread adoption of digital payments. Only then can we effectively digitize customer journeys and attain our goal of becoming a Smart Nation.”

Mr. Seow points out a deterrent to achieving this goal: The lack of ubiquity in cashless payment acceptance by merchants discourages consumers from making the transition to cashless payments. “One of the obstacles to widespread cashless payment adoption we’ve identified is that there are still various myths circulating around cashless payments – that high costs are involved in setting up the infrastructure to process payments, that it is unsafe, and that it is complicated to use for both merchant and consumers, etc. We set up the Smart Nation Ambassador Programme (SNAP), an outreach program that can help debunk these myths and demonstrate to businesses how going cashless can be low-cost, easy and raise business productivity, taking us one step closer to our vision of a Smart Nation.

Seamless, Ubiquitous

“A national, interoperable system would serve to expand digital payments and reduce cash usage overall. We believe the system will accelerate the adoption of digital payments in Singapore through its ubiquity. As a leader in digital payments, this is a highly encouraging prospect,” Mr. Seow says. 


Given that building a cashless society is on the national agenda, Mr. Seow is very optimistic about the chances of success. “For example, the establishment of the National Payments Council – a multi-stakeholder panel tasked to review and develop interoperable, unified payment solutions, including a common QR code standard for use in payments – is a positive development that demonstrates the nation’s commitment.”

PayNow, which is based on the Central Addressing Scheme, has recently hit a million registrants, of which DBS/POSB has the lion’s share of around 50 per cent. NETS has also made inroads on enabling small businesses to use their QR code function to go cashless. Customers of NETS’ member banks, which bank over 90 per cent of Singapore, will soon be able to use the QR code function.

Through a common QR code standard for payments framework, the QR code will also allow for the possibility of integrating overseas payment services and international scheme QR code payments. All these developments point toward a successful unified, interoperable payment system that is inclusive for customers, business, banks and payment services.

At present, more than 800,000 DBS PayLah! users are already equipped with QR code payment functionality, and will be able to make QR code payments at some 55,000 NETS terminals across Singapore that are QR code payment-enabled. “This includes our recent partnership with ComfortDelGro Taxis with whom we enabled QR code payments in all 16,000 ComfortDelGro taxis here. DBS PayLah! is also integrated with PayNow, which means that DBS PayLah! users can send funds to any recipients registered under PayNow. The funds will be transferred directly to the recipients’ bank account.”

Exciting Possibilities

The push towards digital payments provides exciting possibilities, Mr. Seow admits. “It will allow us to serve customers seamlessly and invisibly as they commute, shop, transact and pay in their everyday lives. This will potentially unlock new business opportunities, allowing us to serve our customers in a completely integrated manner, and create better customer experiences as we embed ourselves in the customer journey. This will change our business dramatically; we found out that customers who engage with us digitally account for twice more revenue, on average, than other customers.”

A new study by Juniper Research titled AI & Machine Learning: Fintech Dynamics, Disruption & Future Opportunities 2016-2021 predicts that unsecured consumer loans that use artificial intelligence or machine learning technology will jump to 960 per cent over the next five years (2016-2021).

“The use of artificial intelligence in our business is exemplified in our partnership with Kasisto. In September 2017, we launched a groundbreaking, mobile-led digibank in Indonesia with KAI Banking, powering the virtual assistant conversing in Bahasa Indonesia. A revolutionary offering, digibank is paperless and signatureless and brings together an entire suite of innovative technology – from biometrics to Kasisto’s conversational AI capabilities – to enable customers to enjoy a whole new way of banking.”

With the KAI-powered assistant, essentially a chatbot), digibank customers experience a seamless banking journey similar to having a banker at one’s beck and call, without having to speak to a call center agent – a must-have requirement for any mobile-first bank, Mr. Seow elaborates.

KAI’s unique ability to hold human-like conversations ensures the experience is as natural as interacting with a human. In the mobile app, Mr. Seow demonstrates, customers simply type, ‘What is my account balance?’ or, ‘Please show me my five latest transactions,’ and the KAI-powered assistant will respond with a personal, human-like answer.

Through intelligent conversations, the assistant helps digibank customers to improve their financial literacy, and user education via a series of conversational

FAQs. It increases their financial wellbeing with a contextual dashboard, while rapidly gaining access to account information and balances. It also locates transactions by data, merchant or category, and streamlines customer onboarding and self-service support.

“Our digibank launch in Indonesia follows the successful rollout of digibank in India in April 2017, which has enabled DBS to penetrate India’s retail banking market with about two million new customers acquired to date. In Singapore, KAI AI Banking also powers the POSB digibank Virtual Assistant found on Facebook Messenger – the nation’s first financial chatbot on a social media platform.”

Mr. Seow asserts that this is just the beginning. Through artificial intelligence, they can create better value and digital experiences to increase consumer demand, and leverage intelligent conversations to increase customer engagement and loyalty. “We strive to create omnichannel experiences to cater to our customer’s preferences on platforms such as WhatsApp and WeChat, and will continue to introduce new AI-powered products and services to launch in new markets.”

Major Business Shifts

"We believe that banks tomorrow will look fundamentally different from banks today,” Mr. Seow surmises. “That’s why we have spent the past five years deeply immersed in the digital agenda, whether it is changing the culture and mindsets of our people, re-architecting our technology infrastructure, or leveraging Big Data, biometrics and AI to make banking simple and seamless for customers.”

Mr. Seow emphasizes that customer-centricity is at the core of their business. “I constantly challenge myself and the team with questions like, ‘How can we make it easier for consumers to pay?’ or ‘What do consumers really want from their cards?’ Keeping pace with our customers is basic – what we need to do as a customer-centric business is to anticipate their needs, and we do that through digitization.”

And they have done a lot towards this. DBS customers can now redeem their rewards and gift vouchers on the spot through their mobile phones with the DBS Lifestyle App, while in the past they had to wait a week for their vouchers to come by mail.

A Milestone Achievement

”I would like to remember the launch of the DBS PayLah! app as one of our milestone achievements,”Mr. Seow enthuses. “Since its launch in 2014, we enhanced DBS PayLah! with several trailblazing features. Besides sending money, users can also request for payment from others, make payments to over 43 billing organizations, donate money to more than 26 charitable organizations, and top up mobile prepaid SIM cards. Users can also shop and pay with DBS PayLah! at selected online merchants, including Qoo10.sg, comGateway, AXS and MSIG.”

DBS PayLah! is also widely accepted as a payment option in another of the bank’s unique solutions for F&B businesses in Singapore, DBS FasTrack. It is the first of its kind to be introduced by a bank in Singapore, and provides a seamless ‘self-service’ ordering and payments solution for businesses that eliminates the need to queue up, thus shortening customers’ wait time drastically. Businesses in turn can use the solution to enhance their productivity and reduce reliance on manpower.

“To date, we have over 800,000 PayLah! users, which ranks us as the nation’s top mobile wallet. It is the first in Singapore to give users – including non DBS/POSB customers – the ability to generate their own QR code to receive funds as well as pay via QR codes. Consumers only need to use their DBS PayLah!, DBS iWealth and DBS/POSB digibank app to scan a QR code to make payments at all NETS and PayLah! QR-enabled merchants.

A Steady Path

Ample data suggest that the modernizing unsecured loan market is growing. In the US, for example, a TransUnion consumer credit report (November 2017) estimated that credit card balances had risen 7 per cent in the Q3 of 2017 to $731 billion, while personal loan balances reached an all-time of $112 billion, potentially becoming a US$17 billion business for fintechs by 2021. Fueling this growth will be advances in analytics and accessible computing power.

“The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) noted in December 2017 that the overall unsecured credit situation in Singapore ‘remains healthy’,” Mr. Seow discloses. “This is in part due to regulations that were put in place by MAS to help consumers exercise prudence in credit management.”

“MAS’ foresight and prudence,” he emphasizes, “has stood Singapore well through the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, where we were able to weather the effects of the financial crisis better than most of our neighbors. DBS is aligned with and fully support the MAS on helping consumers maintain sound financial health.”

“We are no different from any bank with regard to how we make money from cards and unsecured loans,” Mr. Seow admits. “Cards and unsecured loans are important products that complete a full suite of financial services, including insurance, mortgage, financial planning, investment, etc., which we provide to meet the needs of our customers. Being Singapore’s (and Southeast Asia’s) largest bank, we cater to very diverse customer segments. Each has a unique set of needs, and so we tailor our value proposition and offerings accordingly to what will appeal to each group.”

A Life In Banking

“I have been in banking for almost 20 years now. One might say I would be hard-pressed to find something that excites me, but that is certainly not the case. Since joining DBS in 2013, the past three to four years have been the most exciting period of my career. Actually it should not surprise me, since those years coincided with the bank’s digitalization drive that allowed us to re-imagine banking in unlimited ways. All of us have been challenged by our CEO, Mr. Piyush Gupta, to think about ‘creating a 24,000-person start-up’ for DBS to become nimble and serve our customers better. Disruption from FinTech start-ups is driving down walls around the traditional banking industry, so we must evolve to stay relevant and globally competitive.

This has pushed Mr. Seow, as he claims, to learn and get right into understanding the different technologies and figure out how they could work for them. “More importantly, it was also about changing the way we work and to inculcate an innovation-led mindset. We need to be agile. We are big on experimenting at DBS, so that we can learn fast. If we are going to fail, we fail fast and fail cheap, then we pivot and try again. This is so that we can fully immerse in the digital world and ride the wave to the next frontier of innovation.

Mr. Seow has seen tremendous change in consumers, from how they used to consume media, communicate with one another, shop, adopt technology, and live their lives, and so on. “We need to change just as quickly to keep up. I am proud to say that DBS is embracing this head on to stay ahead of competition, but more importantly we see a lot of ‘new’ – new opportunities, new technologies, and new ways of interacting, communicating, and serving our customers. In doing so our customers will see how banking with DBS can make their lives better and easier, because banking is really about people’s lives.”