Introduction

DBS is Singapore’s leading bank and aims to be its customer’s life partner. It hopes to make banking “invisible” to consumers and is achieving that goal by building ecosystems that immerse financial services into different customer life events.

We studied DBS and the prominent success factors that differentiate the bank from its competitors.

Challenges

The banking industry, usually associated as traditional, is under pressure to catch up with the new kids on the block — up-and-coming digital payment platforms and fintech disruptors. With COVID-19 serving as a huge inflexion point in customer behaviour, banks realise that customer experience needs to be at the forefront. What used to be incentives for incremental changes pre-pandemic are now full-fledged reasons for banks to sprint towards transformation. That said, some challenges banking services face are:

• The inability to build recurring relationships with customers across one’s life journey through ecosystems
• Lacking innovative products that promote customer loyalty
• Limited personalisation, undifferentiated experiences.

Best practices

1. Creating ecosystems across important life milestones – marketplace “one-stop shop”

A. Property

1. Helps identify properties based on your preferences/budget
2. Advises on what kind of properties you should get based on your income – price range is broken down into home loans and down payments with a mortgage affordability calculator
3. Helps you find out the loan amount you are eligible for

B. Home and living

1. Provides electricity, mobile, broadband, renovation services
2. Offers promotions, comparison, alternate payment services

C. Travel

1. Partners with Singapore Airlines, Expedia Partner Solutions and Chubb
2. Provides a traveller kit: travel-related perks (especially for DBS/POSB card members)
3. Complimentary travel insurance
4. Awards DBS points and offers flexible payments

D. Car

1. A marketplace for both car seekers and owners
2. Provides savings on car loans, insurance, accessories and other services

E. Health

1. Provides health screening, healthcare services, healthcare products, wellness packages

2. Building an education ecosystem for educators, parents and students with a watch

A. For children

1. Helps children build good financial habits
2. Alerts children of their activity levels – heart rate, step count, calorie consumption, etc.
3. Facilitates payments in school bookstores, canteens, pharmacies outside of school and more

B. For parents

1. Helps them set a daily expense limit, automatically for their children
2. Able to review children’s health and activity statuses
3. Able to monitor children’s spending and saving habits

C. Educators

1. Gain an overview of children’s spending and habits in school

Outcome

Takeaway

DBS masters two factors in the experience economy – time well spent and time well saved, by:

Time well saved – Creating optimal functional experiences

• Providing services easily – through one touchpoint

1. When offering a suite of different services, tie all offerings on a single platform.
2. If it’s too challenging to build such a platform from scratch, consider partnering with existing services.
3. Also, help customers make big life decisions by providing a clear overview of what to expect. For example, if you are offering car loans, provide a complete loan breakdown in a straightforward manner, inclusive of the monthly payments required and the potential years of loan repayment.
4. Present information that customers are looking for. This is possible by preparing an interface that lets customers key in context-unique information and then generating personalised info according to the details given.

Time well spent – Creating emotional experiences

• Building ecosystems according to life journeys

1. Customers are no longer looking for one-off products but services that can make their life experiences easy and seamless.
2. Deep dive into a person’s life processes and identify the core moments. Then design services that target these crucial events – it’s all about becoming your customer’s life partner.
3. Also, match these services according to each customer’s unique context. Take into consideration your customer’s salary, current commitments, preferences and more before offering product recommendations.

Endnote

DBS (2020) Annual report 2020. https://www.dbs.com/annualreports/2020/files/media/dbs-annual-report-2020.pdf