Covid19

OCBC’s Virtual Wealth Advisory Service Sees 45% in Sales During Circuit Breaker

On 18 April 2020, with the Circuit Breaker period still in effect, OCBC Bank took the highly-regulated wealth advisory process – a complex face-to-face process involving over 50 pages of documents and a comprehensive Financial Needs Analysis (FNA) – online.

OCBC Bank registered an increase of 45% in the sale of wealth management products in the first 10 days of launch compared to the prior 10 days, indicating a positive response from customers to non-face-to-face wealth conversations. The products range from unit trusts to bancassurance products, and from structured investments and bonds to foreign exchange products.

As a result, customers of OCBC Bank retail banking, OCBC Premier Banking and OCBC Premier Private Client were able to review their investment portfolios during a time of market volatility and seize investment opportunities. They said that, while the take-up for the new process by customers of the retail banking segment have been encouraging, customers of OCBC Premier Banking and OCBC Premier Private Client have shown a better response as many trades were already done over the phone in the past.

Since 18 April 2020, OCBC Bank’s more than 1,000 financial and wealth advisors have been conducting meetings and sales advisory via video and screen-sharing facilities in place of physical face-to-face interactions previously conducted at branches; OCBC Bank’s encrypted video conferencing tool is used to ensure customers’ privacy. E-signatures are accepted instead of paper signatures; pdf copies of FNA forms, product summary and term sheets, and product application forms are sent by encrypted email in place of paper documents.

Banking products purchased digitally soared during Circuit Breaker

Taking the complex and highly regulated wealth advisory process virtual is unprecedented. They see this as one of the biggest digital achievements in wealth management.

OCBC Bank has seen the take-up for digital services soar, from new accounts to the sale of investments. Within the first two weeks of the Circuit Breaker, Time Deposit placements online increased 150%. Compared to January, there was a 14% increase in CASA opened in April. Overall, one in three credit cards and 30% of current accounts and savings accounts (CASA) are now acquired digitally.

Eight in 10 of OCBC Bank’s digitally active customers today bank using their mobiles; more than 90% of the total volume of the bank’s financial transactions in Singapore are performed on digital.

The digital adoption for wealth solutions continued to rise in the first quarter of 2020 as well. The bank saw robust growth of 40% in financial transactions year-on-year. Sixty per cent of unit trusts were purchased digitally, showing a 2.5 times quarter-on-quarter growth in value. Investment amounts in the OCBC RoboInvest service grew 60% quarter-on-quarter, an increase of 3.5 times year-on-year from the first quarter of 2019.

Mr Sunny Quek, OCBC Bank’s Head of Consumer Financial Services, Singapore, said:

Sunny Quek

“Many have said that the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak on health and economies is extraordinary. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. Working closing with the regulator, we could bring the most complex and regulated wealth advisory process online and onto video platforms. This is extraordinary. This was no mean feat as it required careful execution to ensure the end-to-end process is safe and secure, and that we deal fairly with our customers. As a result, many of our customers who are concerned about their financial situations are still able to talk to us in the most effective and efficient way as if the consultant were physically present to offer superior advisory.

While many customers are still accustomed to face-to-face interactions with our bankers, even after the Covid-19 outbreak, this virtual process will become a new normal. In the future, customers will have a choice at their convenience to decide the best mode of engagement for their financial needs.”

Featured image credit: Terence Ong – Own work, CC BY 2.5, Link