Financial Services Firm Delivers Multi-Channel Banking ...



|Overview | | |“We are driven by what our customers expect from us and know that, with more dynamic and efficient |

|Country or Region: Singapore | | |channels for interaction, our relationship with our customers will be strengthened.” |

|Industry: Banking | | |Patrick Chew, Head of Delivery, Consumer Financial Services, OCBC Bank |

| | | | |

|Customer Profile | | | |

|OCBC Bank is one of Asia’s leading financial | | | |

|services groups, with total assets of | | | |

|U.S.$98.8 billion. It has an extensive | | | |

|network of more than 370 branches and | | | |

|representative offices in 15 countries. | | | |

| | | | |

|Business Situation | | | |

|OCBC Bank needed innovative products and | | | |

|services to stay ahead of the local | | | |

|competition and a demanding and connected | | | |

|customer base. The bank also needed to expand| | | |

|its multi-channel capability. | | | |

| | | | |

|Solution | | | |

|The bank decided to use the Microsoft® .NET | | | |

|Framework as the foundation for the | | | |

|integration and development of customer | | | |

|service channels—including Internet, and | | | |

|mobile banking. | | | |

| | | | |

|Benefits | | | |

|Increased userbase | | | |

|Increased transaction numbers | | | |

|Faster time to market | | | |

|Secure online and mobile services | | | |

|Seamless customer experience | | | |

| | | |OCBC Bank is one of the largest banks in Singapore and Malaysia, with group assets of U.S.$98.8 |

| | | |billion. With an extensive network of over 370 branches and offices in 15 countries, the bank has |

| | | |successfully pioneered an innovative multi-channel, integrated approach to customer service. Its new |

| | | |multi-channel platform, built on Microsoft .NET Service-Oriented Architecture, allowed the bank to |

| | | |rapidly integrate and extend its banking channel capabilities to deliver Internet Banking, Mobile |

| | | |Banking and ATM/CRM customer centric service. This resulted in increased customer base, increased |

| | | |transactions, and overwhelmingly positive customer feedback. With its advanced multi-channel |

| | | |capability, the bank is taking the lead in bringing banking to a whole new level of convenience for |

| | | |its consumers that cut across time and geographic limitations. |

| | | | |

| | | |[pic] |

| | | | |

Situation

The retail banking space is highly competitive, with many organisations jostling to gain an advantage through new and innovative products, services, and banking channels. OCBC Bank Singapore is a market leader in the combined Singapore-Malaysian markets and has gained a reputation as a dynamic financial services provider. With group assets of U.S.$98.8 billion, OCBC has made channel-strategy innovation— created through leading technology—one of its competitive differentiators.

Adopting a service oriented architecture (SOA) technology platform to include Internet and mobile banking has become an important way for OCBC Bank to meet its growth objectives. This would help it to achieve true multi-channel banking without the need to implement new vendor solutions for each new channel or service.

Patrick Chew, Head of Delivery, Consumer Financial Services, OCBC Bank, says: “The more relevant we are to our customers, the more they will appreciate it, and the more likely they will stay with us. We are driven by what our customers expect from us and know that if we offer more dynamic and more efficient channels for interaction, our relationship with our customers will be strengthened.”

The bank’s primary objective was to bring an exceptional level of interactive and consistent banking to its customers through a range of highly personalised online services. OCBC Bank also wanted to optimise its investment in robust and mature technology that can handle large volumes, and that could be implemented on a wide range of client access devices.

Solution

The bank conducted a three-month evaluation and consulted independent IT analysts before selecting the Microsoft .NET as the foundation for its new multi-channel banking systems. The OCBC Bank concept of “build once, deploy many times” was ideally suited to the .NET Framework.

The bank’s developers used .NET to develop new features in half the time it took using the previous platform, replacing obsolete technical components with a new single platform on .NET to ensure regional channel harmonisation.

OCBC Bank is the first bank in the region to integrate its ATM and CRM systems to create a more complete user experience. This progressive self-service strategy allowed the bank to deliver customised marketing and a more personalised customer experience through its ATM channel.

In 2004 the bank used .NET to overhaul its Internet banking channel and offer highly customised online banking services to its customers.

Subsequently, OCBC Bank built the first-ever highly interactive mobile bank portal, with cutting-edge, user-friendly service features. The re-use of defined services avoided development duplication and significantly reduced development timelines. In October 2005, OCBC Bank became the first bank in South-East Asia to offer secure mobile banking on the i-mode® platform, delivered by Singapore’s StarHub network.

“Microsoft .NET was previously used in the creation of our Internet banking service,” Chew says. “Since we have solid and robust multiple channels riding on this technology, it was a natural progression. The technology met our requirements, and it helped to move quickly, in terms of application and system development. It would have otherwise taken us years—plus huge start up costs - to do this.”

In June 2006, OCBC Bank announced the launch of OCBC Mobile Banking, a mobile bank portal with interactive and secured mobile services available on both GPRS and i-mode® platforms, across all Singapore networks—SingTel, StarHub, M1—using a wide range of 2.5G and 3G phones.

Benefits

OCBC Bank enhanced its Internet and mobile banking services by bringing its customer-facing channels onto Microsoft .NET, a move that resulted in additional users, increased transactions, and overwhelmingly positive customer feedback.

In March 2007 OCBC Bank became a sole recipient for the Best Multi-Channel Capability 2006 in the Asian Banker IT Implementation Awards programme.

More Online and Higher-Value Transactions

Since the new online banking service was introduced, the OCBC Internet banking customer base has increased by more than 50 per cent. The monthly transaction volume has increased by more than 60 per cent, and the dollar value of online transactions has also increased significantly.

Within a few months of the mobile bank portal launch, the bank saw an eight-fold increase its user base and dollar-value transactions. The strong increase across various channels demonstrates OCBC Bank foresight in developing and delivering services with a strong focus on the needs of the customers.

“It was an exciting journey,” Chew says. “We wanted to make this service available to as many customers as possible, but we had to remember mobile banking is not a pure, stand-alone channel. It plays an interdependent role in our existing suite of delivery channels.”

Faster Development and Time to Market

The .NET Platform supported the rapid deployment of new features, and significantly reduced the time needed to roll out new online and mobile services. The deployment has harmonised customer experience across Singapore and Malaysia—with almost 90 per cent of the Singapore Internet Web-site back-end host re-used for Malaysia.

The scalability of .NET also allowed the bank to get OCBC mobile banking operational on the i-mode® and GPRS platforms in a timely manner. “The fact we were able to migrate to a new SOA platform and add new services at the same time was truly amazing,” says Chew. “The .NET platform helped us to release the new features much more easily and in about 50 percent less time than with our previous platform.”

With this new channel, the bank has completed its multi-channel integration strategy and now offers an unparalleled level of convenience, mobility, accessibility, and security to its customers. “With our new flexible platform, we now have the capability to add new features at a more effective and efficient pace to meet the needs of our customers,” Chew says.

Leading the Field in Personalised Mobile Banking

OCBC has taken the lead in shaping the mobile financial landscape in Singapore and created a significant shift in terms of customer service, partner engagement, and business operations. Through this channel, OCBC Bank can consolidate responses within 24 hours, allowing it to tailor campaigns to individual needs and levels of interest.

OCBC Bank has also become the first bank in the region to implement state-of-the-art CRM features through customers’ mobile phones, offer highly personalised, relevant, and differentiated product offerings. Surveys showed that 80 per cent of users found mobile banking relevant to their daily lives, while 70 per cent of its users found the platform easy to use.

Says Chew, “It is really about our customers and helping them to stay connected to their finances. The power of OCBC Mobile Banking lies in providing our customers secured banking in a connected universe. They can now truly bank anywhere and anytime; it is like having a ‘Bank in your Mobile Phone’.”

Secure Online Banking Creates Brand Confidence

The .NET Web-services platform helped OCBC Bank to offer the first virtual keyboard on a Singapore banking Web site. This allows customers to enter their username and password using a mouse and to minimise the risk of malicious programs—such as Trojan horses—capturing confidential information.

Security features built into .NET protect sensitive and confidential customer data and secure the intellectual property assets of the bank. In addition, OCBC Bank initiated months of rigorous hardware and security testing before deploying its Internet and mobile banking systems commercially. Reflecting user confidence in the security of the service, customers have paid bills and transferred funds ranging from a couple of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars.

Chew says: “What we have done is to add on a 2-factor authentication recently to both our internet banking and mobile banking to ensure that our customers enjoy a peace of mind when they go online with us.”

OCBC Bank is also the first bank in the region to offer 3 unique choices for delivery of one-time password as 2nd-factor authentication for login to internet or mobile banking. Depending on their individual needs and lifestyle, the customers can choose to use the hardware token, SMS-based token or a revolutionary mobile phone token which delivers the one time password via a downloaded security application on the phone.

Delivering an Integrated Customer Experience

A key driver for OCBC Bank business is to ensure its customers enjoy the benefits of consistent service delivery across multiple channels, devices, and systems. Now, customers have a comprehensive range of channels to bank according to their lifestyle needs and preferences.

Because of the cross-channel implementation, customer interactions through one channel become instantly accessible, ensuring consistency across all channels. Channel and CRM system integration has also opened the door to new marketing opportunities, which were previously impossible or too costly to implement using traditional marketing processes.

For example, a marketing campaign through the mobile banking channel costs 90 per cent less than a traditional Direct Mail (DM). As a result of the direct link to the bank CRM system, mobile banking campaigns can be deployed within days, representing a time-saving of almost 90 per cent compared to DM.

Microsoft .NET

Microsoft .NET is software that connects people, information, systems, and devices through the use of Web services. Web services are a combination of protocols that enable computers to work together by exchanging messages. Web services are based on the standard protocols of XML, SOAP, and WSDL, which allow them to interoperate across platforms and programming languages.

.NET is integrated across Microsoft products and services, providing the ability to quickly build, deploy, manage, and use connected, secure solutions with Web services. These solutions provide agile business integration and the promise of information anytime, anywhere, on any device.

For more information about Microsoft .NET and Web services, please visit these Web sites:



msdn.webservices

-----------------------

| |Software and Services

■ Microsoft .NET

| | |

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published March 2007 | | |

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:

For more information about OCBC Bank products and services, call (65) 6363 3333 or visit the Web site at:

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download