Thursday, 25 April 2024
DBS launches a holistic digital financial advisor "Your Financial GPS"
DBS Bank announced the launch of “Your Financial GPS”, Singapore’s first holistic digital financial advisor that is now available to all DBS/POSB customers via DBS/POSB iBanking and digibank apps. With the launch, more than 2.5 million DBS/POSB customers can immediately access the digital advisor. It is an extension of the bank’s financial planning initiative “NAV – Your Financial GPS”, aimed at helping customers navigate through life’s changes, uncertainties and opportunities.
The digital financial advisor is integrated into customers’ banking transactional activities through DBS/POSB iBanking and digibank apps. This enables its budgeting functionality to provide analysis of customers’ bank account activity as income and expenses are automatically categorised. Customers are also provided with an overview of their set budgets, and can see how they are tracking against long-term financial-life goals with just a few clicks anytime, anywhere.
The digital advisor then goes a step further by undertaking active analysis of customers’ current financial positions to offer tailored financial advice. It empowers them with actionable insights, so they can better manage their money and have a plan for savings and investments. For example, if a customer sets up a home goal, Your Financial GPS will first propose an ideal savings amount he or she can consider and at the same time, offer advice on the small steps that can be taken to make saving for the property easier.
Your Financial GPS was developed based on feedback from more than 100 face-to-face customer interviews and 160 prototyping sessions. In addition, the bank also analysed huge volumes of user data and behavioural activity. Most customers found the consolidation of their expenses a tedious task, and preferred using apps which are customisable and go beyond just consolidating numbers. The majority of customers also indicated that they took a longer-term view to their financial-life goals, but did not know how much to peg to each goal, or if they were on track.
In response, DBS debuted Your Financial GPS in a pilot launch in January this year to 300,000 customers aged 21 to 35. The pilot concluded with strong positive user feedback on its ease-of-use and usefulness of its insights.
“Your Financial GPS is like having my personal financial planner in my pocket,” said Mr Daniel Lim, aged 26, one of the pilot users. “It tells me automatically where my money goes in a summary view, and that is incredibly useful because it is easy to forget the tiny sums here and there that do eventually add up. What’s even better is I now receive personal insights that guide me to manage my money better! I haven’t stopped recommending Your Financial GPS to my friends, as I believe financial planning is critical for the future and this gives us a head-start with a thorough understanding of one’s finances.”
Your Financial GPS uses a “SAIL” concept – Saving, Assurance, Invest, Life Goals – to identify coordinates on a customer’s financial journey so that they can course correct with ease.
Said Mr Brandon Lam, DBS’ Singapore Head of Financial Planning Group, “Financial planning can be confusing for some, as it covers a broad spectrum of interconnected topics. Helping our customers fulfil their financial-life goals and understand how to better manage their finances is of great importance to us as Singapore's largest bank. When we launched NAV Hub last year, we wanted to offer our customers a no-sales environment where they can embark on their financial planning journeys. The new Your Financial GPS advisor, which puts the bank’s financial planning expertise at one’s fingertips, mirrors the same ease and we hope it will help people make sensible decisions about their money clearly and easily, so that they can spend more time enjoying life and with the people who truly matter.”
Re-disseminated by The Asian Banker
