Four banks in Singapore are participating in a pilot that aims to explore ways to simplify online banking transactions with the use of the government’s MyInfo online authentication service.
The pilot is backed by the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office (SNDGO) and Government Technology Agency (GovTech), in collaboration with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
Prospective customers of United Overseas Bank (UOB), Development Bank of Singapore (DBS), Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) and Standard Chartered Bank (StanChart) with a registered profile on myinfo.gov.sg will be able to apply for a new bank account without needing to submit supporting documentation.
This aims to provide greater convenience and a faster transaction time for consumers while benefiting banks in the form of higher productivity and lower compliance costs.
Banks in Singapore currently require users to submit copies of their identity, income and CPF documents for applications. With MyInfo, customers can pre-fill these Government-verified personal particulars into the necessary forms, and avoid the need to submit supporting documents.
MyInfo has been rolled out for SingPass users since May 2016 for popular government digital services such as balloting of the Housing Development Board’s Build-To-Order (BTO) flats. MyInfo is scheduled to be available on most government digital services with SingPass two-factor authentication (2FA) by 2018.
Jacqueline Poh, Chief Executive, GovTech, said, “We want to explore how citizen-centric government digital services can be extended to better help industry and transform service-delivery to citizens. We have seen good take-up of MyInfo, and hope that this public-private collaboration will provide citizens with even more benefits.”
Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer, MAS, said: “MAS is excited by the opportunities that national infrastructure platforms can bring to the financial industry, such as hassle-free online account opening and instant account activation in the near future. MAS would like to urge the industry to reimagine their customer journey for instant gratification as they leverage platforms like MyInfo.”
Michael Gorriz, Group CIO, Standard Chartered Bank, said: “Central database and central data-keeping is absolutely the way forward. If you look at the 3 parties – the Singapore government, the citizens and the banks or other entities – it is really a win-win-win situation. So first of all, for the consumer, he only has to enter the data once and then he decides who has access to the data. We as a Bank, we win, because we get qualified data from the consumer, which he puts all due diligence and care in to keep it up to date.”
After this pilot, MyInfo may be extended later this year to other popular transactions such as applications for credit cards and home loans. MyInfo could also be extended to other sectors with strong citizen touch points such as insurance.