Earlier this year OCBC Bank launched a fintech co-working space and innovation unit in Singapore and its first accelerator program to identify and collaborate with innovative startups. Now, a few months later, OCBC Chief Executive Samuel Tsien emphasized the ongoing commitment to welcoming and strengthening the adoption of financial technology at his bank, reported finews.asia, while meeting with the final eight start-ups selected from over 200 applications who had come through the OCBC Fintech Accelerator Programme.
“To me, the much talked-about disruptive power of fintech lies in how it can deliver ‘exponentially’ enhanced experience value that is much beyond the expectation of our customers, and not just incremental improvements,” Tsien noted at the meeting. “Banks have so far been countering the onset of fintech by falling back on our traditional strength, which is the high level of trust that customers place in us. However, that is no longer adequate. We too must disrupt to deliver outsized value that we can then marry to our trust advantage.”
Included in the successful cohort are Fincast, BondIT and CogniCor, who completed successful proof-of-concepts for wealth management and virtual customer assistance; the startups will now test their innovations with OCBC Bank and the Bank of Singapore, according to finews.asia.