The service will be offered initially for wealth clients in Singapore.

DBS has launched DBS Wealth Chat, a service that will allow DBS’ wealth clients to interact, exchange ideas and transact with their relationship managers via instant messaging platforms WhatsApp and WeChat, a sign of how such channels are being embraced by banks in the battle for clients.

The bank said it is the first in Southeast Asia to provide this service. It is developed in partnership with regulatory technology start-up FinChat. 

To access the service, RMs can register interested clients in a private chat group with the bank. Once confirmed, DBS will set up a unique chat group administered by the bank between the client and their RM. Once the chat group with the RM and client is initiated, conversations and file exchanges that occur within the chat group will be archived by the bank without any intervention required from the RM. The entire process is fully automated. 

The firm thinks that this will allow for a speedier service delivery to clients. The introduction of DBS Wealth Chat is estimated to save some 10,000 man-hours annually.

In the first phase, DBS will begin to register and onboard interested wealth clients in Singapore onto the service, where reports, research insights and ideas, and exclusive invitations will be shared. Additional investment-related transactions will be introduced in 2019.

“We recognise that customers today are inundated with different apps and services and decided to go where our customers already are – WhatsApp has upwards of 1.5 billion users, while WeChat has close to 1 billion users," said Tan Su Shan, group head of consumer banking and wealth management at DBS. "Our aim is to provide banking services that are embedded in our customers’ everyday lives, while maintaining client privacy and keeping to our rigorous security requirements. With DBS Wealth Chat, we can now meet both the communication needs of our clients and regulatory requirements. We look forward to realising the full potential of this tool, and to introducing more industry-leading solutions to our clients.”

The “chatbot” revolution is one of the themes of the digitalisation of wealth management in Asia. This publication reported in March that Citigroup rolled out a service on the Facebook Messenger channel for all consumer banking customers.ne

A report last June by MyPrivateBanking Research, the Switzerland-based firm, identified the most popular “chat” facilities used by wealth management firms. The study, titled Digital Wealth Management in Asia: Focus on China and India, analysed the strengths and weaknesses of the digital wealth management of the ten largest wealth managers in China and India. It focuses on firms' offerings to their high net worth clients and how these compare to market’s needs and expectations. In China, it was found that 80 per cent of wealth managers use WeChat, which is seen as the most important digital channel. Chatbots are used by four out of ten wealth managers, all of which are local players, and chatbots are intergrated into their WeChat accounts, website and/or mobile application. Also, the report found that universal banks focus on their retail client sector more than private client when it comes to technological innovation.

Also last June, OCBC, parent of Bank of Singapore, had introduced a chatbot to answer employees’ HR queries.

The development of such channels can also help, some practitioners hope, with the need for banks to boost advisor productivity in fast-growing regions such as Asia, as recently highlighted by a story about "crazy" salary growth in the sector. On the flipside, security fears, fuelled by stories about cyber-security breaches, might deter some clients from embracing digital offerings. See an associated article here.