Bank sees more opportunities in digital initiatives
It has been reported in several media sources that DBS adopted IBM’s next generation mainframe family, the z15.
IBM’s z15 single-frame and multi-frame systems deliver “security, privacy and resiliency at scale as part of your enterprise-wide cloud infrastructure”, according to the vendor. IBM and DBS have a technology relationship that goes back 20 years.
For DBS technology is an integral part of the financial service provider’s strategy. During its 2020 second quarter financial briefing, CEO Piyush Gupta, said digital activity has gone up dramatically across all our markets, from setting up new accounts to payments.
“Depending on the product line and the country, digital activity is up 30 per cent – 40 per cent across the board,” he stated. “The interesting thing is that it is now being embraced by people who have so far been reluctant, including the elderly. One of the things we have done during this period is to stitch up the last-mile digitisation.”
According to Gupta when the organisation had to cater for 100 per cent working from home during the global pandemic, it discovered gaps that weren’t apparent earlier because either transaction volumes were low, or it was not an imperative to close them.
“This last-mile stitching will bring an opportunity to digitalise transactions that could not be done previously, such as trade finance,” he said. “How much of the new-found digital activity will stick is unclear. During the de-monetisation episode in India, people didn’t have a choice but use digital. Once that ended, some went back to cash.”
According to Gupta consumption and production patterns would digitalise even more rapidly that they have.
“Five to ten years’ worth of digitalisation has happened in three months and a lot of that will stick,” he said. “There will also be significant changes in the way business is done, including the agenda around sustainability.
Gupta said the financial service provider was already seeing the benefits of digitalisation. And that reflects the strides we have made.
“Over the three-month period, our business volumes are up in absolute and market share terms,” he said. “There will also be new business opportunities. There are going to be new areas in sustainability as well, such as carbon trading or digitally tracking the provenance of supply chains. All these opportunities will be helpful for mitigating the interest rate headwinds facing us.”
Tags: DBSdigitalisationibm
