Digital financial companion: OCBC unveils avatar banking to transform customer journeys
OCBC deploys first AI-native bank mobile app in the region incorporating two avatars to offer hyper-personalised wealth management services on a real-time basis, 24/7. Avatar banking by OCBC WoW is a brand new customer engagement channel. The avatars in OCBC WoW interact seamlessly with customers through voice or text, and anticipate needs using advanced portfolio intelligence.
OCBC unveils avatar banking to transform the way it engages customers. „The Bank’s new app, OCBC WoW, incorporates two avatars delivering hyper-personalised wealth management services on a real-time basis, 24/7. Over time, OCBC WoW will leverage its AI-native environment to extend its range of products and services to meet customers’ increasingly sophisticated needs and build deeper and stickier relationships.” – according to the press release.
With AI, Digital, Data (ADD) at the core of the Next Frontier corporate strategy, OCBC will intensify the build-up of its AI-native environment to support a test-and-learn culture. This approach enables rapid, low-cost experimentation through prototyping, allowing promising ideas to be quickly refined and scaled into agile, high-impact execution.
Spanning wealth management to becoming a daily go-to news destination, and from lifestyle rewards to core banking services, OCBC WoW aims to establish itself as a “digital financial companion” seamlessly integrated into customers’ everyday lives.
In its beta version, Wendy and Wayne, the two avatars in OCBC WoW – which means OCBC bringing the “Whole-of Wealth” proposition across the Group to customers – will show customers their investment portfolios, and deliver personalised market news and data combined with OCBC Group insights and top investment ideas across markets, geographies, currencies and themes. OCBC WoW anticipates customer needs and incorporates advanced portfolio intelligence.
Wendy and Wayne will interact seamlessly with customers through voice or text. They will provide customers with sophisticated portfolio analysis, so they can better understand underlying exposures and sources of risk. This in turn empowers customers to make more informed decisions, optimise portfolio allocation and improve long-term investment outcomes.
OCBC WoW enhances OCBC wealth advisors’ understanding of the investment needs of customers, enabling pro-active engagement with timely, relevant and tailored support. This encourages customers to invest more through OCBC, thus enlarging the share of customers’ wallet in OCBC’s ‘Whole-of-Wealth’ push.
OCBC Group CEO, Tan Teck Long, said: “We are changing the ‘face of banking’. Starting with wealth management, we are transforming how we engage customers with the use of avatars and hyper-personalisation on a real-time basis, 24/7.
“The ability to roll out new features in quick succession in a viable manner is made possible because of an AI-native environment. Hyper-personalisation goes from being a buzz word to being a reality with intelligence built into the foundation. With ADD – AI, Digital, Data – at the core of our growth push, we are very excited that OCBC WoW is only the beginning. Welcome to Avatar Banking by OCBC WoW.”
First AI-native bank mobile app in South-East Asia
Five compelling features in OCBC WoW in combination will nudge customers to keep coming back to ask Wendy or Wayne for the latest news and insights, tailored to their needs and preferences, and to access actionable investment ideas:
Real-time curated news and market developments relevant to the customer’s portfolio;
Timely market price data from 7 indices and commodities, with planned expansion to 12 over time;
Personalised OCBC Group insights and house views as well as their implications on the customer’s portfolio;
Tracking of the customer’s portfolio and how it is impacted by market developments;
Actionable investment ideas based on the customer’s profile and risk appetite.
The beta version of OCBC WoW will be released to a selected group of employees and customers on an invitation-only basis. Customers who are invited are currently served by OCBC Premier Private Client (with minimum assets under management of S$1.5 million) wealth advisors. Subsequent phases of the beta version will be progressively rolled out, with enhancements driven by iterative prototyping and user feedback, underpinned by a nimble, scalable approach. A fuller roll-out is expected at a date to be announced.
The new platform is built on four technology architecture layers:
. The first layer comprises data ingestion of real-time market data, OCBC research and insights, and customers’ portfolios, transaction data and behaviour sets;
. The second layer integrates the AI deterministic guardrails into the platform;
. The third layer comprises the use of AI agents for building intelligence at scale;
. The last layer generates the output modules that are seen and experienced by customers.
„The outcome is that OCBC WoW can deliver real time, always-on wealth management capabilities to customers in a safe and secure environment.” – the bank said.
Watch this video to see how a customer can interact with OCBC WoW while going about their day:
More to come in OCBC WoW
The avatars, Wendy and Wayne, will initially engage customers in English. Languages such as Mandarin, Bahasa Melayu and Bahasa Indonesia will be progressively introduced. Down the line are tailored insurance solutions and banking services, a wider range of avatars and exclusive deals to celebrate customers’ investment milestones and rewards that cater to a wide spectrum of lifestyle preferences.
Enhancing customer centricity through AI, digital and data
The rollout of OCBC WoW builds on earlier investments in AI, digital and data.
Earlier this year, OCBC’s consumer banking unit rolled out a Gen AI-powered skills training programme for its wealth advisor force in Singapore. The six-month programme coaches wealth advisors on a full range of competencies including investment advisory, client management, product mastery and wealth planning. By incorporating GenAI, the programme helps minimise bias and emotional influence often associated with traditional, supervisor-led coaching, enabling more objective and consistent development outcomes.
Within the first three months of training, wealth advisors demonstrated a high level of customer engagement, securing double the number of weekly client appointments compared to peers who had not yet completed the programme. There was also a 50 per cent uplift in revenue compared with the previous three months.
Last year, Bank of Singapore, OCBC’s private banking arm, rolled out an agentic AI-powered source of wealth (SOW) tool. Embedded directly into Know-Your-Customer workflows, the AI ‘agent’ independently initiates and coordinates tasks such as extracting, structuring and synthesising information across customer records and supporting documents, identifying data gaps and prompting targeted follow-ups when needed for assessment completion.
This tool helped relationship managers reduce average preparation time for SOW reports from 10 days to just one hour, accelerating client onboarding and periodic reviews. The RMs can then channel the gain in productivity into deepening client relationships and delivering superior experiences.
