United Overseas Bank (Thai)
United Overseas Bank Thailand is something of a minnow in the local banking scene. It has total assets of Bt557 billion ($18 billion), less than one fifth of the size of Siam Commercial Bank and Bangkok Bank, and 150 or so branches. Under chief executive and president Tan Choon Hin, the bank is blazing a trail on the digital front.
Earlier this year, it rolled out TMRW, the first mobile digital bank in Asean as part of its strategy to target Thailand’s digital generation. This new market segment, the bank says, accounts for roughly one third of the country’s population.
TMRW makes banking simpler, more transparent and more engaging. For a start, customers can open a bank account and authenticate their identities without even having to visit a branch. It’s as simple as uploading a photo ID-card and filling in a few online forms.
Then there is TMRW’s intuitive and frictionless app that is personalized to each customer’s needs. The ground-breaking system is powered by next-generation artificial intelligence with data analytics. UOB expects between 500,000 and one million Thai users to sign up by the end of the year.
Thailand’s hip digital generation is not the only market that UOB is targeting. The bank also wheeled out BizSmart, a cloud-based digital solution that helps small and medium-sized enterprise customers to reduce routine administrative tasks such as accounting, payroll and employee management. In just a few months, over 4,000 customers have taken advantage of BizSmart, proving that the lender can match the best in the business.