Low Lay Hiang
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Offshore customer account digital onboarding

COVID-19 disrupted travel around the world, so overseas customers could no longer visit a branch in Singapore to open a bank account. We designed a self-service journey that lets them open an account from their home country. Overseas customers submit their personal details and complete the Know Your Customer (KYC) checks online. The journey has onboarded customers from China, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Indonesia.

Role
Project lead
Recognition
OCBC CEO Awards 2024
Country
Singapore
Hero image: the onboarding journey

Reframe the problem

Initially, the bank wanted to create an account opening journey just for Premier customers. I took the lead in identifying the target audience and their needs from a Singapore bank account. This helped us redefine the target segment and shape a stronger proposition to market the service better.

Understand the current state

Internally, we looked at how account opening currently works, with the help of Relationship Managers. This showed us existing pain points and highlighted crucial information the digital journey needs to collect.

We learnt from Relationship Managers

  1. Motivation
    • Want to diversify their investments outside their home country
    • Want to send their children abroad to study
    • Have business relationships in Singapore
  2. Needs
    • Ease of fund transfer
    • Safer, low-risk investment products
  3. Pain points
    • Language is a major barrier
    • Incomplete or incorrect information during the process can lead to unsuccessful account opening
    • Customers have difficulty activating their account after applying

As this was a first in the market, we also needed to understand how digital KYC works, so we could incorporate it into a seamless experience.

Picture 4.1.1

Validate ideas early, learn and iterate

I recruited Chinese customers living in various cities. Conducting one-to-one interviews in Mandarin, we tested the journey from the website (awareness) through to onboarding (apply).

We learnt from customers

  1. Customers' awareness may not start on the bank's website
  2. The onboarding process is long
  3. Scanning the biometric chip in a foreign passport is hard
  4. Customers need easier access to account details to make fund transfers
Picture 4.1.2

Launch and measure

We tracked customer drop-off with Adobe Analytics and gathered customer feedback with Qualtrics.

We learnt from data and feedback, which shaped our later iterations after launch

  1. High drop-off during KYC Give better instructions on how to scan their passport and ID card. Adjust the sensitivity of the KYC check when reading these documents.
  2. Chinese customers do not have the concept of an account number Better education on how to locate the account and transfer funds into it.
Picture 4.1.3

Challenges faced

This project started with several challenges, but it has set the gold standard for future onboarding experiences.

  • Getting stakeholders to buy in to testing the experience with real customers.
  • There was no live prototype, so testing the vendor solution (e.g. KYC) and its interactions left a gap.
  • During implementation, there were a few local nuances that we had not captured:
    • China: addresses were exceptionally long, as customers added their mobile number, fearing they could not receive letters.
    • Indonesia: not everyone has an international passport with a biometric chip, so not all passports are suitable for this onboarding process.
    • All: straight-through applications increase the risk of fraudulent accounts being opened.