The use of digital banking and AI is accelerating, not just as a response to the global pandemic, but because banks are trying to scale up business models and win efficiencies.

Singapore-based DBS is spending S$300 million (around $222 million) on its digital and “Intelligent Banking” channels in 2020, equating to a 14 per cent year-on-year rise. The announcement comes amid widespread commentary on how the pandemic has accelerated the digitisation of banking.

The investment will be used to embed “Intelligent Banking predictive technology” in more financial solutions, helping the group to scale up its online and offline capabilities across Asia, DBS said in a statement yesterday.

The group wants to entrench predictive tech into its newly-launched Client Connect frontline advisory tool in order to help advisors and relationship managers provide “hyper-personalised” advice to clients, as well as expanding the use of Intelligent Banking across the markets in which DBS is involved. 

The announcement comes more than a year after DBS first rolled out its Intelligent Banking capabilities to retail and wealth customers in the form of smart “insights” and “nudges” on DBS digibank. DBS’ Intelligent Banking engine combines predictive analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.

“It’s still early days, but we are confident in the value-add that Intelligent Banking can bring to the banking industry, and we are in this for the long haul,” Sim S Lim, group head of consumer banking and wealth management at DBS Bank, said.

DBS’s Client Connect system, built in-house, consolidates data insights from across the bank to provide relationship managers and financial advisors with an all-in-one view of the customers they are servicing, as well as nudging them with data-driven intelligent prompts in the form of “Next Best Conversations.” The system will replace frontline tools and systems currently in use at the bank.