DBS unveils new digital financial planning tools to bolster financial resilience

DBS, which says a third of its customers had negative cash flow in January to June 2020 , is ramping up its suite of digital financial planning solutions and tools to empower Singaporeans for a head start in retirement planning and boost their financial resilience amid these tough times.

The bank studied its pool of customers who have their salaries credited into DBS/POSB accounts and found that for one-third of them, money flowing out of their accounts on average exceeded the amount of money going into the same accounts, in the first six months of this year.

The new solutions that the bank will be launching from this week include a new Map Your Money interactive dashboard that can project a customer's future retirement needs based on their current finances. The Map Your Money function is part of the bank's digital advisory tool NAV Planner, which in turn is integrated within DBS/POSB's mobile and internet banking service, digibank.

On Aug 8, DBS will launch a retirement planning portal to help customers better understand estate planning issues, with access to relevant services such as CPF nomination, will writing and setting up a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA).

The group also announced a first-of-its-kind collaboration between the Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board and a bank; DBS and CPF are  working together to train the bank's wealth planning managers and loan specialists on CPF schemes.

In a news release issued on Sunday, DBS said its new solutions will help customers and their wealth planning managers to identify and address any blind spots or gaps in their retirement planning life cycle, whether a customer is accumulating assets  or moving into the decumulation phase. (The decumulation phase is when customers begin to convert their savings, investments and other retirement benefits into sustainable income that can fund their requirements after the pay cheques stop.)

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"While most DBS customers know when they want to retire, they are less certain about how long their nest egg will last. They also do not know how to supplement their cash and CPF savings with investments," the bank added.

DBS is also using facial recognition technology and artificial intelligence to help users better visualise their retirement future. "Dubbed Face your Future, the tool, to be launched this month, taps on algorithms to estimate a customer's retirement needs based on his or her lifestyle choices and even creates a photographic portrait of how the customer looks at retirement age," the bank said.

The Map Your Money function, to be rolled out progressively from Aug 2,  pulls together customers' existing assets held within and outside DBS, and projects their future income based on pre-defined assumptions, so that they can better visualise their future cashflow situation through an integrated chart. Map Your Money also integrates baseline CPF and Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) rules to provide a hassle-free experience for customers when assessing their financial future, DBS added.

Jeremy Soo, the head of Consumer Banking Group at DBS Singapore, said: "During these uncertain times when people are worried about declining incomes and outliving their savings, DBS has an even greater responsibility to extend our expertise in managing money and simplifying retirement planning for Singaporeans.

"Coupled with our partnership with CPF, we are offering Singaporeans an industry-first holistic retirement proposition that provides greater clarity around their financial future based on the assets they have - including those held under government schemes such as CPF and the SRS. This unparalleled access to insights and resources will enable Singaporeans to make more informed investment decisions that will strengthen their financial resilience during their golden years and protect the financial health of their loved ones."

The CPF Board's group director of communications, Irene Kang, noted that CPF is an important foundation of retirement for many Singaporeans, and congratulated DBS for taking the initiative to make retirement planning more accessible to everyone. "We welcome similar collaborations with other financial institutions," she added.