By Amanda Lee
Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp., Southeast Asia's second-largest lender, plans to ramp up hiring even as it adopts artificial intelligence, betting that a combination of both will be the winning formula for growing its wealth business.
The Singapore lender plans to add 600 relationship managers for its consumer-banking wealth business over the next three years, its top executives said at a media briefing on Wednesday. Alongside that, the bank will launch an app for affluent clients featuring avatars that can provide hyper-personalized wealth-management services in real time.
The beta version of the app, called OCBC WoW, will be released to a selected group of employees and customers, available by invitation only. Invited customers are those with at least 1.5 million Singapore dollars in assets under management, equivalent to US$1.2 million, and are served by OCBC Premier Private Client wealth advisers.
The subsequent phases of the beta version will be introduced progressively, with a fuller rollout to follow.
"We think of AI helping to grow the business. We think of AI complementing our workforce," Chief Executive Tan Teck Long said.
Over the next few years, the bank expects to spend north of S$1 billion annually on technology, including AI initiatives, he said.
OCBC has said it plans to double its consumer-banking wealth business by 2029. The lender recently acquired HSBC Holdings' wealth management and retail banking business in Indonesia.
Banking rivals DBS Group and United Overseas Bank are also increasingly sharpening their focus on wealth management to boost their noninterest income.
DBS aims to build 18 wealth hubs across Asia by the end of next year, while UOB targets doubling its wealth income by 2030.
Write to Amanda Lee at amanda.lee@wsj.com