The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures put in place to limit the spread of the virus have drastically accelerated adoption of digital banking and contactless payments. Across Southeast Asia, banks have ramped up their digital efforts to respond to the rapidly changing financial landscape.
In Singapore, Standard Chartered intends to spend US$5 million in the next three years for growth and digitalization. The British bank has 10,000 employees dedicated to growth and digitalization initiatives in the city-state. More than 1,200 job positions focus on online banking-related fields including cloud and data analytics.
United Overseas Bank (UOB)’s digital bank TMRW officially launched in Indonesia in August 2020, a move that followed the digital bank’s first launch in Thailand back in March 2019. With this offering, the Singaporean bank said it is targeting Indonesia’s generation of “enterprising and digitally savvy customers,” providing local customers with a fully digital banking experience and an account opening process that’s intuitive, seamless, fast and secure.