OCBC has launched a wealth management app, the latest financial institution to use such technology in this space.

Singapore's OCBC has launched OneWealth, a wealth management app that monitors investments and provides customised market information and investment suggestions from the bank's experts.

According to OCBC, some of the customers' pain points were feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of investment choices and needing help in monitoring and adjusting a portfolio once an investment product is purchased.

“We believe that the convergence of mobile and wealth management can make wealth management services more simple, accessible and personal for our customers. It’s what I call the ‘democratisation’ of wealth management,” said Aditya Gupta, head of e-business for Singapore at the bank.

A 2014 report by Juniper Research predicted there will be 1.75 billion mobile banking app users by the end of the decade.

OCBC is among a series of institutions that have rolled out mobile app platforms in recent years. BMO Global Asset Management launched an iPad app in February, and both Citigroup and IG Group, the online trading platform firm, launched apps on Apple Watch last year.

Hong Kong and Singapore come first and third, respectively, in rankings of how deeply and widely consumers use financial technology, underscoring why so much fintech innovation appears to be coming out of Asia, according to a recent study by EY (aka Ernst & Young). 

In a survey of 10,131 “digitally active consumers” in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK and US, it showed that Hong Kong has the highest rate of fintech use of all markets surveyed (29.1 per cent). The US has the second-highest adoption rate (16.5 per cent), followed by Singapore (14.7 per cent), the UK (14.3 per cent), Australia (13 per cent) and Canada (8.2 per cent).

The upsurge of interest in fintech, which covers a range of areas such as mobile apps, cognitive computing and developments such as “robo-advisors”, has been noticeable in Asia. For example, Credit Suisse chose to launch its mobile private banking platform in Singapore rather than its native Switzerland. Banks such as Citigroup have held innovation competitions in the region. As reported in September, Citigroup named partners for a programme to encourage financial technology innovation in the Asian region: IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers. DBS, meanwhile, has made no secret of how digital technology is a core part of its whole banking business strategy. Asia e-commerce giant Alibaba has its own wealth management platform. In a separate report issued yesterday, meanwhile, Cerulli, a Boston-based firm, said that in the US digital advice market alone, assets under management are projected to be $489 billion by 2020 from just $18.7 billion now - giving some idea of how fintech-driven business models are seen as a significant growth area.