Singapore and Hong Kong – 6 March, 2015 – IDC Financial Insights has announced the twelve winners of the annual Financial Insights Innovation Awards (FIIA) at the Asian Financial Services Congress 2015.
The recipients were recognized for their effective use of technology and innovation to attain improvements in their business and operations.
Every year, IDC Financial Insights invites financial institutions across Asia/Pacific to nominate initiatives that they believe are most innovative.
With nearly a hundred highly-qualified submissions put forward in 2015, the FIIA program continues to be one of the most sought-after award for Asia/Pacific financial services.
The following organizations have managed to distinguish themselves as having not only effective solutions that meet the challenges of today’s dynamic market conditions, but also in establishing new precedents in the use of IT:
Bank Internasional Indonesia – Cool PAY and BII Sinergi Card
Name of award: Asia’s Leader in Corporate Banking
BII’s proposition takes the form of a financial supply chain management solution for local SMEs, a commonly underserved segment, incorporating critical elements of business intelligence as a competitive differentiator. This complements parent company Maybank’s positioning as a leader in regional transaction banking.
Cathay United Bank – Big Data Infrastructure: Enterprise Data Governance
Name of award: Asia’s Leader in Smart Banking
A revamped data warehouse has substantially enhanced customer data visibility within the bank across all lines-of-business, and enabled real-time data queries to match client needs with the right product. In short, not only does Cathay United Bank now have a ‘360-degree customer view’ of their customers, but in-built analytics provide actionable insights for quick decision-making.
Cathay United Bank – Smart Lending Project
Name of award: Asia’s Leader in Smart Lending
As an enterprise-wide IT transformation initiative, this project has succeeded in developing significant efficiencies in the loan origination process, leading to one of the shortest turnaround times across the entire Asia/Pacific region.
CFG Services Co., Ltd. – Integrated Financial Solutions for the Unbanked
Name of award: Asia’s Leader in Financial Inclusion
CFG Services has conceived perhaps the most compelling and holistic of financial upliftment initiatives in recent history, while delivering specialized banking and insurance services to underserved segments. This initiative has measures to address the unique requirements of the market, including low literacy, low financial education, and lack of access to traditional banking channels.
CTBC Bank – Retail Banking Risk Management Revolution
Name of award: Asia’s Leader in Risk Management
To better gauge a borrower’s repayment capability and to proactively attract premium customers, CTBC Bank has overhauled its retail banking risk systems. It is currently the only Taiwanese bank using models for pre-approval to produce market-leading turnaround times. This also enabled it to become the first bank with an online lending service platform in the country.
Hong Leong Bank – Hong Leong Bank Oracle Private Cloud
Name of award: Asia’s Leader in Next-Gen IT Infrastructure
Hong Leong Bank’s database-as-a-service cloud has consolidated sprawling data warehouse systems. The result was a single, robust infrastructure that can be shared by all lines-of-business, thus improving connectivity stability, enabling smart-provisioning, and expediting deployment, maintenance, and support and deployment.
MasterCard – MasterCard Priceless Engine
Name of award: Asia’s Leader in Customer Engagement
The Priceless Engine platform allows MasterCard to provide its bank and merchant partners with consumer insights to drive strategically-timed offerings. Combined with social analytics and sentiment tracking, this platform is able to generate comprehensive what-if analyses for each engagement campaign in real-time, across multiple geographies.
National Australia Bank – The NAB Village
Name of award: Asia’s Leader in Branch Innovation
NAB has pioneered an alternative physical engagement method, focusing on C2C collaborations as its core value proposition. The NAB Village is a hosted workspace custom built for the highly agile next-generation client to connect and share business ideas, proving that the bank continues to lead the way in channel strategies not only in Australia but also in the rest of the Asia/Pacific region.
OCBC Bank – OCBC Open Account Mobile App and Online Application
Name of award: Asia’s Leader in Digital Banking
OCBC Bank has launched the first ever account-opening app in Singapore, available through both iOS and Android platforms. Customers can remotely open a deposit product, submit documents (by uploading or taking a photo using the smartphone’s camera) and provide their signature specimen entirely through the app.
Security Bank Corporation – Sweep Card
Name of award: Asia’s Leader in Merchant Partnerships
The Sweep Card introduces the first open-loop payment solution in an otherwise close-loop ecosystem in the Philippines, being especially relevant to the mass market and under-banked segments. This multipurpose proximity wallet incorporates the ability to store loyalty points and enable cardless remittances through the eGiveCash facility, while functioning as a conventional ATM and travel card.
St. George Bank – St. George Fingerprint Logon
Name of award: Asia’s Leader in Next-Gen Security
The St. George Fingerprint logon provides an alternative, faster way for mobile banking authentication on the iPhone 5s, iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus devices. The bank has secured a first-mover advantage in the Australian market through this offering, thus aligning with their longstanding ‘mobile-ready’ strategy.
CIMB Group
Name of award: Best Bank in Asia/Pacific
Through its decade-long run, the FIIA program has gained extensive visibility on the region’s financial industry and the technological roadmap of its principal players.
During this period, CIMB, having established itself as a super-regional franchise and a technological powerhouse within the financial industry, has been prolific in imagining and deploying next-generation technology and business initiatives, covering a broad range of areas such as payments, risk management, data management, and customer experience.
The merits of all submissions are measured by the FIIA Assessment Panel, comprising of Financial Insights’ lead analysts as well as independent judges comprising of longstanding industry practitioners and thought-leaders. The evaluation process subjects each initiative to a rigorous set of scoring metrics that takes into account its responsiveness to market needs, effectiveness of deployment, and market response and long-term business viability.
“The past year has shown us that Asia’s financial industry is becoming more open and versatile than ever before. Our leading banks have evolved themselves from mere financial intermediaries to product innovators and cross-industry collaborators that can to deliver more diverse value to their clients,” says Ho Sui-Jon, the Program Director of the FIIA and a member of IDC Financial Insights judging panel.
“We now see new standards in service, customer benefits and market reach being established as financial service ecosystems begin to demonstrate unconventional competencies, which have been enabled by greater 3rd Platform maturity.”
About The Financial Insights Innovation Awards (FIIA)
Each year, IDC Financial Insights invites banks across Asia/Pacific to nominate initiatives that they believe warrant special recognition in the area of innovation. The FIIA recognizes the successes of these institutions in displaying innovation to achieve business objectives. The FIIA provides a clear indication of how the Asia/Pacific financial services industry leverages technology as a driver of innovation and competitive differentiation.
About IDC Financial Insights
IDC Financial Insights assists financial service businesses and IT leaders, as well as the suppliers who serve them, in making more effective technology decisions by providing accurate, timely, and insightful fact-based research and consulting services. Staffed by senior analysts with decades of industry experience, our global research analyzes and advises on business and technology issues facing the banking, insurance, and securities and investments industries. International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology market. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world’s leading technology, media, research, and events company. For more information, please visit www.idc-fi.com, email info@idc-fi.com, or call 508-620-5533. Visit the IDC Financial Insights Community at http://idc-insights-community.com/financial.
About IDC
International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries worldwide. For more than 50 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world’s leading technology media, research, and events company. You can learn more about IDC by visiting www.idc.com.