How OCBC is building a customer-centric bank powered by personalisation and AI

This year, the Singapore-headquartered OCBC exceeded its goal of S$50 billion (approximately $37.3 billion) in committed sustainable finance. What makes the milestone even more noteworthy is that OCBC hit this target — initially set for 2025 — significantly ahead of schedule.

As several banks around the world grapple with a volatile macroeconomic environment, geopolitical tensions, global imperatives around ESG, and the challenges associated with digitalisation, OCBC has charted its own course, using the evolving needs of its customers as a lodestar. To meet the requirements of a diverse customer base — from top tier businesses in Singapore to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) — the bank offers a sophisticated suite of digitally driven solutions across areas like foreign exchange and hedging structured products, sustainability-linked solutions, and tokenisation.

Giving a greater insight into the bank’s evolution, Gerard Tan, MD, head of digital sales, analytics, and marketing at OCBC global markets said, “We want to bring immediacy, accessibility, and simplicity to our customers.”

A personalised approach to digitalisation

Digitalisation has allowed banks to offer a wider range of products, as well as multiple opportunities and avenues to connect with their clientele. However, rather than inundate its customers, OCBC is relying on real time feedback to make its offering as seamless and relevant as possible.

Tan said, “Most financial institutions provide daily outlook for customers. We are exploring ways to provide customised, personalised news and insights. For instance, alerts based on customer behaviour — if they buy US dollars, we can notify them if the prevailing rate is superior to their past transactions.”

Wee Wei Min, MD, global head of sales and structuring, global markets, OCBC said, “We were the first local bank to offer live FX rates 24/7. Over time, we will introduce more currencies. We are trying to create an automated system for currencies that are rarely traded, taking into account the different regulations. We also publish a lot of research online and are working on getting live feeds around this content.” The bank’s personalised approach ensures that a customer receives only the most useful aspects of this market research, based on their previous behaviour.

APIs have played a critical role in personalisation and improving efficiency. OCBC has over 500 APIs across cash management, liquidity forecasting, virtual accounts, FX, payments, and trade. While revenue from digital channels has been on the rise, APIs represent the fastest growing digital solution.

Gerard said, “Corporates expect a full solution — for instance, integrating the APIs across FX and remittance, or maybe virtual account management, for new economy businesses. We want to leverage AI and machine learning to help our customers do a better job. Our APIs can help automate some of the highly repetitive processes and transactions, allowing our customers in treasury more time to focus on strategy.”

Increasing accessibility to finance with tokenisation

In May this year, OCBC partnered with digital exchange ADDX to launch a tokenised equity linked structured note. This was the first product directly issued by a Singapore bank to land on ADDX’s shelf. Speaking about the reasons for the partnership, Tan said, “It is aligned to our ultimate goals around immediacy and accessibility. We can reduce costs and deliver different products and solutions to our customers.” Tokenisation helps fractionalise structured products, reducing the initial capital outlay required for an investment.

Finding progressive solutions for hedging and FX

OCBC’s consultative approach extends to its offering around hedging and foreign exchange. According to OCBC’s Wee Wei Min, “We are quite particular about guiding our clients when it comes to their hedging needs. We do not just recommend interest rate swaps. Instead, we focus on their goals: Is there a particular target they want to achieve? Can they afford to pay a premium to buy insurance, instead of just executing a vanilla swap?”

Realising that clients — particularly in Asia — rely heavily on the comfort and reassurance of interpersonal interaction, OCBC’s digitally driven approach is tempered by access to relationship managers. Wee said, “It is not just about the staff on treasury and markets — our customers can access an arsenal of relationship managers. We work hand in hand to cover the client's relationship holistically — not just around FX or interest rate hedging, which is where our Global Markets expertise is, or investment solutions. We collaborate closely with our partners in corporate banking because that is where they offer trade lines, loans and other facilities which encapsulate everything.”

Building sustainable treasury solutions

As ESG mandates become more ubiquitous, OCBC is assisting its clients across the full spectrum of transition. Having received a license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, OCBC was the first bank in Singapore to offer a carbon credit solution. Wee said, “It helps clients start their net zero journey. We incorporate it into their day-to-day effects or interest rate hedging needs rather than have them buy carbon credits, which corporates may not have allocated a budget for.”

A further demonstration of the bank’s commitment to ESG came with the recent appointment of sustainable finance veteran Mike Ng as group chief sustainability officer. It is a critical role since educating clients on ESG is still part of the bank’s mandate and an important step in the journey in Asia where sustainability-linked financing got off to a slower start compared to Europe and the United States.

Whilst the top tier corporates and listed companies have already embarked on their ESG journey, OCBC’s mandate now focuses on encouraging its SME clients to adopt sustainable financing. As Wee explained, “The bigger boys have easy access to funds.” With SMEs accounting for a significant part of the bank's business, bringing them on board becomes a critical part of meeting Singapore’s wider sustainability goals. OCBC is offering SMEs sustainability-linked loans (SLLs) instead of vanilla financing. In doing so, the bank can provide cheaper financing so long as the SME achieves certain sustainability objectives linked to the loan, which can be verified by independent auditors. Wee said, “It could involve reducing energy consumption and may require investments in solar panels or motion sensors. But it helps in their journey and makes the financing more meaningful.”

For OCBC, its initiatives around sustainability-linked solutions, FX and hedging structured products, and digital solutions which won it top honours at the CorporateTreasurer Awards are an ongoing endeavour. Tan said, “We want to leverage technology to simplify complex processes, make information more accessible, and deliver personalised solutions. A key milestone is the continuous development of our universal platform, offering our customers a wider range of solutions. It is not about building the fanciest product, but helping our customers manage risk more effectively and achieve their financial goals.”