OCBC introduces new avatar banking for 24/7 wealth management services

OCBC has unveiled what it says is the first AI-native bank mobile app in Southeast Asia, featuring two AI avatars that offer customers hyper-personalised wealth management advice in real time, 24/7.

The app, called OCBC WoW — short for "Whole-of-Wealth" — was launched on Jul. 1, and marks a new customer engagement channel for the bank.

The app will, over time, expand its range of products and services beyond wealth management, aiming to become customers' "digital financial companion" integrated into their everyday lives.

Round-the-clock portfolio advice

The two avatars, Wendy and Wayne, interact with customers through voice or text.

They show customers their investment portfolios, and deliver personalised market news and data combined with OCBC Group insights and investment ideas across markets, geographies, currencies, and themes.

The avatars are also designed to anticipate customer needs using what OCBC calls "advanced portfolio intelligence".

This will provide sophisticated portfolio analysis so that customers can better understand their underlying exposures and sources of risk, enabling more informed investment decisions.

OCBC WoW's core draw is five features designed to keep customers returning to the app regularly.

These include real-time curated news and market developments relevant to the customer's portfolio, as well as market price data from seven indices and commodities, with plans to expand this to 12 over time.

The avatars will also offer personalised OCBC Group insights and house views along with their implications for the customer's portfolio, track how the portfolio is impacted by market developments, and surface actionable investment ideas based on the customer's profile and risk appetite.

Beta version

OCBC WoW is currently in its beta phase, and is being rolled out on an invitation-only basis to a group of employees and customers.

For now, the beta is limited to Singapore, though a spokesperson said the plan is to progressively expand regionally as language capabilities are developed.

The avatars are also unable to independently execute complex transactions or provide financial advice for now.

A spokesperson explained that the avatars' investment recommendations are drawn exclusively from OCBC's in-house research, which they described as "a restricted database".

For more complex products or transactions, customers are still directed to their human Relationship Manager (RM), subject to existing regulatory and suitability checks.

This division of labour is also behind OCBC's plans to hire 600 more RMs over the next three years, even as it leans further into AI.

With the avatars fielding simpler queries and surfacing customer needs upfront, RMs are expected to engage their full customer base more meaningfully, focusing their time on the more complex conversations customers still prefer to have with a human.