2018 was a big year for fintech as e-wallets and digital payments in Singapore are on the rise and companies are coming up with more solutions to meet the consumer needs of today.
Last year, the United Overseas Bank has teamed up with Razer to launch Razer Pay in Singapore, and in November the bank has “successfully completed ASEAN’s first cross-border peer-to-peer funds transfer proof-of-concept (POC)“.
Following their partnership with NETS and Grab, UOB now sets its sight on developing and capturing the market for tomorrow with the launch of the TMRW app in Thailand.
Targeted at millennials, TMRW is described as the “first mobile-only bank” and aims to make “banking simpler, more transparent and more engaging for its customers through the use of data”.
Understanding that traditional banking methods may not resonate as well with millennials who prefer to do pretty much everything on their phones, one of the outstanding features in TMRW is the gamified act of saving money.
As Mashable explained succintly: “[The] more money users save, the faster they level up in the mobile-only digital bank app. As users level up, they would unlock various options to build and enhance their virtual city.”
This feature was the most popular amongst the 1,500 customers who joined the programme in Thailand, according to UOB.
The bank, through a survey conducted in September 2017 in Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia, found that millennials “respond better to prompts that are fun and do not make them guilty” when it comes to getting guidance for personal finance.
TMRW is also designed to be simple to use and easy to understand.
For example, the app is free from banking jargon and the more it is used, the more intuitive and seamless it becomes to the user.
That means the first information and function users see when they open the TMRW app will be unique to them after a period of usage.
The app also features a chatbot inspired by popular messaging apps, and the digital chat service is also the first in the world to allow users to make calls within it.
Dr Dennis Khoo, Head of Group Retail Digital, UOB, said that TMRW was “created from scratch” to cater to the financial needs of ASEAN millennials, which is the third largest digitally-savvy consumer base after India and China.
He added, “Having a mobile-only digital bank enables us to explore new frontiers when it comes to designing a user interface based on customers’ banking behaviour and needs and to be sensitive to the nuances of each market.”
“What this means is that TMRW will not be a static one-size-fits-all app, but a digital bank that will continue to learn to create increasingly simple, transparent and engaging experiences for TMRW’s customers in each of our ASEAN countries.”
While TMRW is focused on capturing the millennial market, Mashable confirmed that the digital bank is for anyone to use.
In the next five years, they hope to have three to five million TMRW customers.
No specific date for launch in Singapore has been set but UOB shared that it will progressively launch TMRW in ASEAN in the coming months.
Featured Image Credit: UOB
