IDC Financial Insights picks top 50 mobile pioneers in APeJ

In early 2014, IDC Financial Insights published Mobilizing Financial Services in Asia/Pacific, a report detailing the most innovative and interesting mobility initiatives within financial services. The company has just released an infographic describing the findings. 

IDC Financial Insights notes that Australia, mainland China, Hong Kong, India, South Korea and Singapore are leading the mobile charge in the Asia Pacific excluding Japan region (APeJ). 

The company says the opportunity for mobile commerce is high, with growing adoption of mobile devices in Asia, and great interest in paying for goods and services via a mobile channel. Close to 10% of mobile Internet users in APeJ already make purchases through their mobile devices, for example.

Digital, the company says, has become the preferred customer channel for banking customers in Asia. 

A comparison of banking behaviour between 2010 and 2012 shows a clear rise in mobile transaction volumes over online equivalents in Malaysia and Korea, while a look at transactions in China and Thailand show that both mobile and Internet transaction volumes are expanding their share of the digital transaction mix over ATM transactions for the same period. Banks have been responding by ramping up their support for mobile channels, IDC has noted.

Finally, IDC Financial Insights has revealed the top 50 mobile pioneers in APeJ. These are companies which have adopted advanced mobile technologies like proximity payments, where bringing a mobile device near a payment terminal is enough to complete the transaction; remote payments, or payments which are not made in person; and mWallets, which are applications that allow users to store virtual cards, loyalty and promotional offers, and money in a single mobile app.

View the full list of 50 here.

*All images from the IDC Financial Insights "Asia's Top 50 Mobile Pioneers in Financial Services" infographic. View the full infographic here.

SMEs, consumers to benefit as banks ramp up on innovation

Small businesses and bank customers now have more innovative choices for banking. Selected financial institutions in the Asia Pacific region received Financial Insights Innovation Awards (FIIA) at the Asian Financial Services (AFS) Congress 2014 in Singapore in late February in recognition of their innovation and creativity in fulfilling business objectives:

AllianceBank Malaysia is Asia's Most Customer Friendly Bank for its BizSmart Academy initiative. The Academy combines business education, coaching and seed funding to young SMEs and reaches out to both existing customers and the wider business community. 

The bank offers business education and training to customers through a structured year-long curriculum covering various management, business and finance topics, and also backs an annual SME Innovation Challenge through which high potential SMEs benefit from a two-month training and coaching programme, after which one winner receives RM250,000 to implement their business ideas. 

The Academy also features an online resource of tools and information for entrepreneurs.

Alliance Bank picked up Asia's Best Online Banking award as well for a customer-centric Online Banking solution for the business segment, along with other innovative products such as the Picture Business Credit Card and value-added propositions in the form of business education for SMEs and collaboration platforms.
 

CIMBBank has Asia's Best Payments & Remittance Service

OctoSend via CIMB Clicks service was launched on 23 August 2013 in Malaysia. This feature allows the bank’s customers to send money to anyone using only their mobile number or email address, taking away the hassle of remembering lengthy bank account numbers. This service can be accessed online, via the CIMB Clicks App and through OctoPay, the bank’s Facebook banking application.

Asia's Leader in Smart Banking is Cathay United Bank

Cathay United Bank's Agile Marketing Transformation programme is geared towards enabling more relevant relationship marketing initiatives more quickly. It uses predictive modelling to better align the right product to the right customer, adds greater automation, and leverages on analytics-backed enrichment of new customer data.

DBSBank received the Asia's Best Branch Banking award

Transformed DBS branches deliver an easy and convenient banking experience for its customers that is enriching, educational and entertaining through breakthrough banking infrastructure and technology.

DBS (Hong Kong) Bank, a branch of DBS Bank, provides Asia's Best Mobile Banking

DBS mobile app advertised in Singapore

At DBS Hong Kong, the DBS Online Loans Centre offers automated online straight-through loan application processing, where consumers can use either a desktop computer or smartphone to complete their application and obtain results within minutes, thereby saving time and providing added convenience for consumers.

The annual FIIA by IDC Financial Insights are given to top Asia Pacific financial institutions that have demonstrated innovation and creative thinking in the areas of customer engagement, product development, process reengineering or risk management to fulfill their business goals.