What makes for a good client experience and how does technology underpin it?
Making the client experience better, promoting engagement and loyalty, and increasing the share of wallet; all are front-of-mind when it comes to wealth management. Personalisation is a key facet of all of this.

The whole idea is to drive customer experience and loyalty.

Central to this idea is context. You might have two people with very similar portfolios and risk profiles. But once you add context into the equation, the two people can look very different indeed.

Within wealth management this is all the more relevant. Customers are looking for a highly customised service, tailored to their exact needs and wants. And because they usually have a relationship with more than one wealth manager, the goal is the be the main wealth manager and increase the share of wallet as much as possible. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) powered digital advisory feature we offer within our wealth space sends over one million nudges from our relationship managers each month. We found this really sharpens the reach of the relationship manager, acts as a significant boost to productivity and adds to the relationship significantly.

Indeed, when a client feels that their relationship manager really understands them because they are sending across information that is relevant and timely, then the relationship is a deeper one. It takes into account investment behaviours, trends the client will like, and overall gives a better view of what they would and could do investment-wise – as opposed to ‘just’ risk, suitability and goals-based investing.

Can you give me an example?
A good example is more esoteric investments like you would find within the private markets space, or applying ESG overlays. Although these things are in their infancy compared to mainstream investments, we are aware of the demand for them. Using our data mining and analytics techniques, we would know who would and wouldn’t be interested in receiving insights – and thus we would use our data analy tics capability to funnel relevant and appropriate information to them.

How does DBS use technology to provide a personalised approach?
Indeed, these ‘nudges’ rely on AI and ML which, in turn, rely on the algorithms and the data points fed into them. Technology is the enabler!

To that end we have created an internal data mart with 15,000 customer data points that stitch together a customer’s profile, including the pages they visit, the content they are interested in, the frequency of their visits, the amounts they spend on different categories, etc. We then convert the data into personalised, actionable insights – ‘nudges’ – to guide the customer in his/her transaction or investment decision.

We also add in data sources and supplement our information with new data sources such as SGFindex, Singapore’s public digital infrastructure for financial information held across different government agencies, and location data. Unifying this data has allowed us to deploy more than 100 AI and ML models that pinpoint which messages are most relevant for which customers.

While our data map is nothing like as big as that used by the likes of Netflix, the quality of customer data we possess far surpasses that of most other organisations. Our data points are deterministic – based on verified personal data and actual transactions. But the data held by other organisations are often probabilistic and only infers hobbies and interests.

We are now sending more than 45 million nudges a month to five million DBS customers across Asia. Each of the nudges is actionable and customised; they can be around financial goals, pitfalls to avoid, stock movements, market trends – anything that is relevant to the individual client.

The outcomes as a result of our nudges have been very positive. Relationship managers have been able to increase their AUM and the number of customers who acted on an insight they were sent increased by four times since we first started sending them out. Using the nudges feature has also led to a 16% growth in client engagement.

How does the nudge approach impact the overall experience?
The whole concept of the nudges though, is not to push for an investment decision around a specific product sent to a client, rather to enable better decisioning overall, brought about by insight-driven information being given to clients. We also send ‘next best conversation’ nudges to our relationship managers when appropriate so they can contact a customer to offer support, suggest something new, or re-engage a client we feel has become distanced. We consider this to be using technology to amplify the human touch, to offer a hybrid approach – but at scale.

Indeed, It is important the human touch is still retained and considered to be an important part of the overall service. We frequently reiterate that we use technology to amplify the human touch. We have a ‘no one left behind’ policy, where we carry all of our customers with us on the journey and cater to the needs of all.

What about the timing of these nudges?
The other side of this is in the delivery mechanism and timing of the nudge or insight. We call this intelligent banking and the idea is that not only do we know what content we’d like to send to someone but we also know how to get that to them and at what point in time so it will be well received and appreciated. Again we use AI and ML to determine the timing and method of delivery. The idea is to be useful and unintrusive.

To this end, we have put into place our own data safeguards so we can show our clients we are using data responsibly, in line with regulations, and in a way that is to the benefit of the client. We have our own governance framework based on PURE – purposeful, unsurprising, respectful and explainable. Again this serves to reassure the client that we are acting in their best interest and looking to deliver the best possible service levels to them – in doing so we seek a better level of service and engagement with them.

How does the culture of the firm contribute to an innovative approach?
Central to upping service levels and leveraging technology to support the human is the culture of innovation we have in-house. It is very much within the DNA of the company and we say that we are a technology startup of 33,000 employees, all of whom are empowered to experiment and come up with ideas. In fact, we have more staff devoted to technology than we do to banking! That is from chatbot coaches, UX designers, from Cloud engineers to AI and ML architects; we aim to have a robust in-house capability. All this is underpinned by a ‘can do’ and innovative corporate culture where we value the opinions and suggestions of our employees and continuously update and reskill them – the culture of not leaving anyone behind also applies to those that work for us.

Going forward our plan is to continue to push the concept of the technology being the means to amplify the human touch and enable the adviser to provide an enhanced level of service to delight clients. We believe the future of banking is to be both customer-obsessed and data-smart. The more we do this, the more engagement from clients we get and hone to increase client satisfaction levels and the nature our relationships with clients for the long term.

This article is from The Wealth Mosaic’s APAC WealthTech Landscape Report 2023. Access the full report here.