Hyper-personalisation: Elevating the customer experience with DBS Nav Planner
DBS was recently awarded the global and APAC winner for Most Innovative in Digital Banking by The Banker, in its 2021 Innovation in Digital Banking Awards. One of the projects that made this a reality is DBS NAV Planner, which you have probably seen on your mobile banking application.
As DBS NAV Planner played a large role in this monumental achievement, we took the opportunity to catch up with Evy Wee, Head of Financial Planning and Personal Investing at DBS Bank, on the innovative work that her team has done!
Hi Evy! First off, congratulations on the award! NAV Planner has received many accolades for elevating the customer experience by providing hyper-personalised services. Why do you think it’s so well received?
Evy: The DBS’ Financial and Retirement planning proposition spans across three critical pillars — (1) Literacy & Knowledge, (2) Planning tool — DBS NAV Planner, and (3) a Comprehensive suite of Investment and Insurance solutions. We believe when customers are empowered with the relevant know-hows and are guided by a tool that is personalised at every stage of their lives, they can then overcome their fears and inertia to act on matters relating to money management.
Given that the term ‘Financial Planning’ is interpreted differently by people, I believe this overarching framework has allowed us to design a more balanced approach, where we cater for hyper-personalisation of nudges and guidance, without compromising the essence of why we want everyone to plan and manage their money.
For example, regardless of what stage you are in life or how much money you may have, when you start your planning journey with DBS NAV Planner, it will be guided through this process: (1) ensure you strive to achieve positive cash flow and the desired status of emergency savings, (2) ensure you are sufficiently insured to protect yourself and your loved ones, and (3) start investing your excess monies and close the retirement gap. The amount of money may differ between individuals, but the framework is applied consistently.
Can you talk about the impact that NAV Planner has already made to customers and the Bank?
Evy: Our goal has always been to empower customers through the relevant know-hows and get them started on this journey as early as possible. In fact, when we launched DBS NAV Planner in the midst of Circuit Breaker last year, we shared that our mission is to enable all 5 million Singaporeans and residents, to plan and take action relating to money management regardless of their stage in life or financial circumstances.
We also wanted to demystify the concept that Financial and Retirement planning is something that can only be done by professionals. So far, over 2 million customers have started to do so via DBS NAV Planner, and we continue to see increased interactions within the various pillars such as Savings, Protect, Invest and Retire. In addition, we are heartened to see that many other players, including our competitors in the industry, have come forward to further raise awareness amongst Singaporeans.
We have observed that customers who actively engage with DBS NAV Planner are able to take concrete actions in the areas of Savings, Protection and Investing. For example, customers will heed our ‘advice’, in the form of personalised nudges, and start a dedicated savings account to set aside emergency savings or start investing their excess monies so that these funds are not left idling.
Can you tell us what led to the development of Nav Planner?
Evy: Financial Planning and self-directed Investing started as parallel initiatives in CBG Singapore and Regional Investment teams respectively before DBS NAV Planner became what it is today. Over the past three years, we learnt that most customers in the mass market/mass affluent segment have the desire to invest, but tend to shy away from it, thinking that investing is only reserved for the wealthy, or those who understand financial jargons. While we started to build our digital investing capabilities such as online funds, digiPortfolio and integration of the brokerage platform, we learnt that customers can overcome their fears and inertia if they acquire the right knowledge and receive relevant nudges at the right time.
At the same time, DBS will need to provide the necessary safeguards and tools to guide customers. This process used to be available only through Face-to-Face interactions, however with DBS NAV Planner, we have introduced Digital Advisory services where customers (who are comfortable and confident) can complete this process online and receive a risk rating at the end of it. Once the risk rating is assigned, customers can see the relevant investment solutions available to them. In addition, DBS can provide an even more personalised ‘advice’ to them, once we have more data around their risk appetite, investment horizons, as well as their financial situation, leading them to take further actions to grow their monies. We hope this can create a virtuous cycle to help customers grow their wealth and be better prepared for retirement.
Can you share with us some challenges you and your team overcame?
Evy: The first challenge would be the collection of data. To help customers plan comprehensively, one of the most important components is to start the conversation, so that we can provide customers a complete picture of their financial situation. For a start, we need a complete personal balance sheet where all their assets and liabilities are reflected. Thus, we embraced the concept of an open banking platform, SGFinDex, which will allow customers to share balances in their bank accounts, CPF, and data from HDB with participants. Eventually CDP and Insurance data will also be included.
Another challenge would be to continuously strike the right balance and fine tuning the journey for our customers. There are two parts to this:
(1) Striking the balance between personalisation while ensuring the essence of our framework is not lost when customers are engaging with us, because we recognise that financial planning is different for everyone while taking into consideration that there are many factors that will influence people’s financial decisions, and
(2) Striking the balance between interactions through DBS NAV Planner as well as face-to-face. Financial Planning engagements are traditionally carried out via face-to-face interactions as conversations can be complex. Today, both online and offline channels are available to all our customers, to ensure we are seamlessly connected.
Your platform has introduced a game-changing innovation to not just the bank but also the industry and world. Where do you go from here?
Evy: Despite the increasing awareness, interactions, and engagements in financial and retirement planning, we are still in early days of getting the mass market/mass affluent customers to actively manage their monies. Majority of our customers who have engaged with DBS NAV Planner are in their accumulation stages (largely 45 years old and below). As we continue to enhance the individual pillars around Savings, Protect, Invest, and Retirement and improve our data collection, our hyper-personalisation will need to be sharper. Such as extending services to customers in the decumulation stage whereby they are already in retirement and are looking to monetise both their financial and non-financial assets.
We’re celebrating the Global and APAC Most Innovative in Digital Banking awards from The Banker, and NAV Planner played a huge part. Any words you’d like to share with the rest of your team and the Bank?
Evy: The success of DBS NAV Planner is reflecting great collaborative efforts across many people, both inside and outside the Bank — there are way too many people to name specifically. We are grateful to have received guidance from senior leadership teams along the way, and feedback from DBS colleagues to constantly improve the overall customer journeys. We feel really honoured to be part of a larger purpose where we can do well and do good for the society.
To spice things up, we posed a hypothetical question to our NAV Planner engagement and marketing folks!
If we were to live in an alternate universe, what are some insights and recommendations you would give Spiderman?
Nav Planner folk #1: As a superhero who faces significant risks in his career, Spiderman should consider personal accident insurance to cover any villain-inflicted injuries, and life insurance so that Aunt May and Mary Jane (MJ) are well taken care of in case he follows after Iron Man. NAV Planner would be happy to calculate these coverage gaps and suggest suitable insurance products for Spiderman in NAV Planner’s Protection feature. It can also link Spiderman with a WPM who can assist him with his estate and legacy planning — having learnt from Ironman’s experience, it’s good to be prepared for things like this.
Nav Planner folk #2: Speaking of Iron Man, as his mentee, Spiderman would probably receive a large amount of inheritance or legacy plan from Iron Man. NAV Planner would recommend Spiderman to invest this money wisely after setting aside sufficient emergency savings. The passive income from his investments can fund Spiderman’s suit upgrades and web-shooters enhancements. Just like how Spiderman’s suit is tailored to him, NAV Planner can also tailor a set of customised investment recommendations for Spiderman using its Make Your Money Work Harder feature.
Nav Planner folk #3: Spiderman is more than just his superhero identity. As Peter Parker, he has dreams of living a fulfilling life with Aunt May and MJ. Because this human side of him lives in our world of financial obligations, he will need to plan ahead for his life goals such as saving up for university, his wedding and first home with MJ, and maybe even Aunt May’s retirement. NAV Planner would recommend him to use NAV Planner’s Map Your Money feature to input these life goals and see if he is on track to achieving them.
