The Open Vault at OCBC FinTech Accelerator has spawned three ventures: Fincast, BondIT and CogniCor.

The pilot tests involve wealth management and artificial intelligence solutions. The pilot tests will start in the fourth quarter of this year, and will last for three months. OCBC said it is also exploring opportunities to work with five other start-ups from the accelerator programme: ChromaWay, Coins.ph, Onelyst, Quantifeed and WealthObjects.

One of the wealth management tools, called BondIT, is designed for Bank of Singapore relationship managers. This platform allows RMs to set client portfolios so they fit risk appetites and return requirements as tightly as possible, and do so in a matter of seconds, outpacing more traditional methods, the bank said.

The software powering BondIT stores “a massive amount of bond data, which it can instantly pull up and analyse together with data regarding the customer’s investment appetite, goals and investment preferences”, the bank continued.

OCBC, and other banks such as Deutsche Bank, Bank of China (Hong Kong) Standard Chartered, DBS and Citi, have developed “innovation labs” to encourage brain-storming around financial technology, covering areas such as apps, mobile devices, “robo advisors”, use of Artificial Intelligence, distributed virtual ledgers such as the Blockchain, and biometrics for account verification. With fintechs seen as challenging the markets of banks, such “labs” are seen as an important way for established players to guard their turf.

Turning to Fincast, it is a portfolio management tool. In this case once a customer’s wealth goals are keyed in, such as the amount of investments a customer desires to achieve at retirement, the software analyses the customer’s existing investment portfolio and investment preferences, and delivers recommendations on what investments a customer needs to achieve his investment objectives. OCBC said the software cuts down the amount of time required to manually analyse a customer’s investment projections, making possible a more efficient and effective response to the customer’s investment requests. OCBC Bank said it will pilot this platform at its Premier Banking branches for up to 100 customers selected based on a range of different customer profiles over the three-month pilot period.

In the third of the pilot projects, the bank will pilot a new virtual customer service agent – powered by CogniCor – on its home loans webpage to address initial queries from customers interested in OCBC Bank’s home loans. This gives customers an alternative digital avenue to contact OCBC Bank, without having to call the contact centre or mortgage specialists directly.

“To me, the much talked-about disruptive power of FinTech lies in how it can deliver “exponentially” enhanced experience value that is much beyond the expectation of our customers, and not just incremental improvements. Banks have so far been countering the onset of FinTech by falling back on our traditional strength, which is the high level of trust that customers place in us,” Samuel Tsien, OCBC Bank’s group chief executive, said.

In June, a report from showed that there was a recovery in quarterly funding to the financial technology sector around the world in the first quarter, with total investment in fintech firms reaching $5.7 billion, while global venture capital-backed firms drew $4.9 billion, with 218 deals, up from $1.9 billion in the final three months of 2015. Total fintech funding was $3.1 billion in Q4 2015.

The data, from the Pulse of Fintech quarterly report of KPMG, showed that larger deals also spurred fintech funding growth in Q1. The first three months of this year saw 13 $50 million-plus rounds to VC-backed fintech companies, a slight rise from the 10 $50 million-plus rounds in the previous three months. The report is created by KPMG Enterprise and KPMG Fintech along with CB Insights.