Far Eastern International Bank
People no longer need to go to banks in person; financial services are now available at their fingertips. This is the message most firms in Taiwan are trying to monetise. Many have been rolling out internet banking or developments for mobile apps. But Far Eastern International Bank is one of a few institutions to try something novel, thus making it Asiamoney’s best digital bank in Taiwan.
Far Eastern’s flagship digital creation is Bankee Social Bank, which incorporates banking-as-a-service (BaaS), banking-as-a-platform (BaaP) and open banking. It is the first lender in Taiwan to get regulatory approval to offer open banking services, which enable third-party developers to build apps and services around that financial institution.
Through BaaS, Bankee Social Bank can embed financial services into other services. It has done so with its affiliates under Far Eastern Group and is serving more than 15 million customers throughout the Taiwanese conglomerate.
But perhaps most innovative is its social finance network. The bank uses a profit-sharing type model to engage a user who has a certain number of followers or connections on various social media platforms as an “online branch manager”.