As chief innovation officer at DBS, Neal Cross’s unconventional approach to bank modernisation has attracted attention from across the globe. He speaks to Joy Macknight about how the bank is opening its doors to the top technology talent in Singapore.

Neal Cross embedded

“Fintech isn’t reinventing banking – let’s just put that out there,” argues Neal Cross, chief innovation officer at Singapore’s DBS Bank. “It is banking as it has always been done, but cheaper, quicker and easier.” However, new market entrants have created fear within the industry, which Mr Cross believes is forcing banks to raise their game.

“The term 'fintech' is a passing phrase, as the lines are getting blurred between what is technology and what is finance,” he continues. “Many start-ups are beginning to struggle and pivoting towards partnering more with banks to drive their digital strategies. The latter saw what was happening, became more focused on customers and began [to transform into] digital banks, which means the gap between the fintech experience and the incumbent bank experience is narrowing.”

But the customer-centric experience goes well beyond a “sexy” mobile graphic interface, Mr Cross believes. “The other end of the continuum is to completely reinvent the business of banking,” he says. “It is important to understand where you want to be on the spectrum, as well as understand new competitors and potential partners. There is a whole ecosystem out there and the more partnerships that banks can forge in the digital world the better.”

A job to be done

According to Mr Cross, banks spend too much time thinking of digital merely as a technology strategy, whereas he contends that it is a fundamental shift in truly understanding clients’ life goals.

“Looking for a mortgage, for example, begins with someone having a baby or moving to a new country – that is the journey they are on,” he explains. “There is a real job to be done and part of that is obtaining a financial instrument. In the future banking will seamlessly integrate into the person’s job to be done and become invisible.”

DBS took a conscious decision to make the bank more scientific, nimbler, smarter and more customer-centric, turning the whole organisation into an innovation team. The bank has 300 staff involved in its accelerator programmes, more than 100 fintech mentors and seven teams from the bank running their own fintech companies or accelerators. Last year, 15% of the bank’s entire workforce went through an innovation programme; this year it is aiming for 20%.

Every innovation programme in the bank has to come through Mr Cross's 20-strong innovation team. He explains: “We don’t manage projects but help them with training, kick-start workshops, do fintech assessments and get them to pick subject areas for our accelerators and students to work on.” Additionally, all managing directors must complete a human-centred design thinking programme.

A team of two halves

The innovation team is split in half. One half is called ‘Reinvent the World’, which builds relationships with government agencies, universities, fintech start-ups and corporate partners that DBS innovates with. The other half is ‘Reinvent the Bank’, which encompasses design thinking and experimentation training, as well as large internal projects. However, the two halves work closely with the aim of “bringing the bank together with the outside world to foster cultural exchange, learn new tools and systems, and find new partnerships or new people to hire”.

For example, the former wanted to undertake a student engagement programme, but Mr Cross challenged its limited scope and proposed it should ‘reinvent education’ in Singapore instead. Under the programme, called UNI.Corn, the innovation team scooped up all the interns in technology and operations, went to the universities and advertised through social media, inviting students to send a 30-second video about reinventing the world around them.

The team received 200 submissions, which it narrowed down to 80 and put through a hackathon. It then whittled the list down to the 20 “most innovative, most collaborative, with the best culture, that could operate under pressure and think differently and creatively”, says Mr Cross.

The 20 students were split into four teams focused on specific challenges within the bank. “They sit in a start-up centre, not in the bank. These are very different internships to those spent typing stuff in Excel for three months,” he says.

In addition, the innovation team launched DBS Hotspot, a pre-accelerator programme. Unlike other programmes, DBS does not take an equity stake but pays participants S$25,000 ($18,500) to join. “We are running both programmes concurrently because the training is similar. Teaching students to be entrepreneurs is basically the same as teaching early start-ups,” says Mr Cross.

The Singapore government and financial regulator are very hands-on when it comes to ensuring the conditions are ripe to encourage collaboration and innovation. “The way [the government] supports the financial ecosystem is the best in the world,” says Mr Cross. For example, he is part of an innovation working committee, which brings together the heads of innovation at banks and insurance companies.

Mr Cross’s original approach has garnered attention from governmental agencies in Singapore, including the Ministry of Education, attorney general, tax office and development board, as Singapore pushes to be one of the most innovative centres in the world. To this end, it is hosting a Fintech Festival from November 14 to 18, which will include a hackcelerator, awards, conferences and other events.

PLEASE ENTER YOUR DETAILS TO WATCH THIS VIDEO

All fields are mandatory

The Banker is a service from the Financial Times. The Financial Times Ltd takes your privacy seriously.

Choose how you want us to contact you.

Invites and Offers from The Banker

Receive exclusive personalised event invitations, carefully curated offers and promotions from The Banker



For more information about how we use your data, please refer to our privacy and cookie policies.

Terms and conditions

Join our community

The Banker on Twitter