Applications for all of United Overseas Bank's (UOB) consumer banking products can now be done online, so transactions such as applying for a home or car loan or opening a deposit account will take less than 15 minutes, the bank announced today.
UOB said it is the first bank in Singapore to digitalise all consumer banking product applications. The bank said it achieved an "aggressive target" to transform the application and approval processes for all of its retail products, which also include personal loans and credit cards, within three months.
Its customers have already been taking advantage of this, with one in four applications now being submitted online, it said. For example, in the two months since it put car loan applications online, more than half of its customers have chosen to go digital, UOB said.
The bank said it expects that online applications across all consumer banking products will account for one in two of all applications within the next 12 months.
UOB's online application and account opening processes usethe national digital identity service MyInfo, so customers no longer need to submit multiple documents and fill in lengthy forms. They also do not have to wait days to know the application's outcome.
After customers authenticate their identity using their SingPass and consent to the use of their personal information, their digital application form will be immediately auto-populated with verified information from MyInfo.
UOB said it has built into the digital process a secure connection to Credit Bureau Singapore as well as its proprietary credit assessment engine to facilitate instant decisions on applications. New customers will be able to receive a status on their application within minutes and make transactions immediately thereafter, instead of the one to five days it used to take.
Mr Kendrick Lee, director for national digital identity at the Government Technology Agency, said: "We will continue to work with our industry partners like UOB to develop innovative new services for their customers with MyInfo."
