UOB launches Singapore lab for digital bank; hiring 60 more for digital team
The new initiative would be supported by a lineup of professionals from various disciplines, including data analytics and decision sciences, said the bank
The United Overseas Bank (UOB) on Thursday launched a pan-regional Engagement Lab called eLab to personalize customer services for its upcoming Digital Bank services. UOB also plans to open similar facilities across its Asean network for markets such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, the bank said in a statement on Thursday. The new eLab would leverage artificial intelligence and behavioral insights to better its services and communication with digital bank customers.
Earlier in August, the bank said it was gearing up to launch a digital bank in the region, intended to run on a data-centric business model to boost engagement across the stages in the banking journey –acquire, transact, generate data, insight, and engage.
The bank would exploit artificial intelligence to analyze large volumes of transaction data to identify behavior patterns and meet customer needs accordingly. The eLab played an integral role in facilitating this, the bank said, adding that the new facility would help design and test ways to boost customers to save and spend more intelligently.
The new initiative would be supported by a lineup of professionals from various disciplines, including data analytics and decision sciences, said the bank. The UOB also said the eLabs planned for Asean markets would support their respective local language. The bank planned to add to its current team size of 120 to help deliver digital bank services across Asean, by 50 percent over the next 12 months. A quarter of its new hires would be part of the eLab team.
"Designing a simple and easy-to-navigate app interface to create an intuitive user experience is just the beginning. We want to build on this and to ensure that every touchpoint--from the onboarding process to day-to-day banking--at our digital bank is relevant to our customers and resonates deeply with their lifestyle needs and priorities,” said Dennis Khoo, UOB's head of digital bank and digital banking.
The UOB was also scouting to increase its team of technologists --including software engineers and architects, to work on bank's in-house application programming interfaces.
45 percent of these new roles would be based in Singapore, the statement added, with other positions also available in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.