FinTeChathon with StartUpBootCamp by RHB Bank

FinTeChathon with StartUpBootCamp by RHB Bank

RHB Bank Hosts 1st Ever FinTechathon With Startupbootcamp in Bangi last weekend. RHB Bank (“RHB”) with Startupbootcamp (“SBC”) FinTech fuelled financial innovation through its first Financial Technology Hackathon (“FinTechathon”) in Malaysia last weekend. Themed ‘FinTechathon – Hacking the Wealth Management Industry’, the event was organised to spark the interest of coders, university students and fintech startups to produce innovative technology-driven inventions.

Held from 13 to 15 May 2016, the FinTechathon brought together digital and technology-savvy individuals from the financial services sector and non-financial backgrounds to synergise on new ideas and solutions for the Wealth Management industry. Through FinTechathon, RHB as a partner of SBC in Malaysia, is able to support and mentor fintech startups locally and within the region.

We were at the FinTechathon and we manage to meet up a few mentors during the event. One of them is Mr. Muzir Kassim, the Senior Vice President Head, Mass Affluent and Group Retail Assets and Liabilities Products Group Retail Banking. Together with us were other bloggers and we had a great conversation in some of the topics in wealth management.

We wrote an article about the cost of living in KL for fresh graduates and we asked his opinion on that topic. His advice is for the fresh graduates to save on monthly salary for ‘emergency funds’. It is a habit to save for the ‘emergency funds’ and only then they can spend on other necessities. It is important for fresh graduates to work hard so they can climb the corporate ladder for better pay progressively. With that emergency fund ready, they can start planning to buy a house once their pay is getting better. It is a slow process but a rewarding process.

Another question we asked is the future pricing of the properties. According to him, the prices of the properties will still increase gradually. We will be moving forward tosituations like in Western countries where you can only afford to lease and not to own a property in the city. The cheaper property will be located on the outer ring of Klang Valley in places like Semenyih or Rawang. It is true as my friends in Bangkok stay quite far from the city and same goes to my brother in Vancouver. It is cheaper to stay further away from the city and you get a better housing environment.

We also chat about banks supporting young entrepreneurs and also some of the banking facilities in RHB Bank. The future of banking as well as some of the challenges faced by the bank. The conversation was very informative to me to know more especially advices on wealth management.

During the FinTechathon, RHB Banking Group’s Chief Operations Officer, Rohan Krishnalingam said, “We recognise that our customers’ needs are always changing, especially now with new digital capabilities growing at a rapid speed. We are also cognizant that our customers, specifically the millennials are now banking, saving and investing in different ways, looking for simpler, faster and seamless ways to meet their financial needs. Hence, the FinTechathon is aimed at identifying innovative digital solutions to serve the changing wealth management needs of our different segments of customers. The FinTechathon is part of our Digital Strategy, as we seek to tap into the Fintech ecosystem to find solutions that deliver superior customer experience for our clients.”

For this challenge, participants were given 48 hours, to generate ideas on how to use technology to innovatively attract millennials to invest in wealth related products; how to leverage big data and analytics to strengthen the advisor-client relationship and improve customer experience; and finally how to creatively use technology to encourage customers to save and grow their wealth. The 19 teams were provided API’s by Thomson Reuters, guided by mentors made up of experienced RHB leaders among other sponsors and partners of the event.

“The FinTechathon presented excellent exposure to new ideas and concepts around wealth management. We are very excited to explore some of the solutions further as we develop our wealth management proposition that will be increasingly digital led,” added Rohan.

Managing Director of Startupbootcamp FinTech Singapore, Steven Tong said “We are very happy with the solutions we saw today. There were ideas that could potentially be a good viable business in innovating areas of wealth management in the future.  We will definitely watch out and monitor these talents and hopefully see their applications in our 2017 program!”

The winners were announced on day 3 of the event under the categories of Best Overall Innovation, Best Challenge Fit and Best Technical Solution, with cash prizes up to RM15,000, which were sponsored by RHB. The winners of the FinTechathon are as follows:

• Overall Innovation – won by team AgentHero with members Bobby Ong Chong Eu and Lee Teik Ming. The app is designed to teleport a financial advisor to customer’s doorstep.
• Best Technical Solution – won by team Muin Bot with members Raja Hafify and Jonathan Wong. Muin Bot is an intelligence chat interface that works as another channel for millennials to engage the bank and financial advisors. It is also an avenue for banks to capture or reach millennials.
• Best Fit to a Challenge – won by Team A with members Leong Yok Tien, Tan Khai Ping and Chew Chit Siang. The app acts as a goal oriented wealth assistant.

The FinTechathon this year was the first, held in Malaysia with RHB and SBC promising to host more.

Startupbootcamp FinTech is a world-leading financial innovation accelerator dedicated to helping startups scale globally through direct access to an international network of mentors, partners and investors.

The Startupbootcamp Accelerator programme in Singapore offers SGD25,000 seed investment during the 3-month programme and access to more than 200 mentors, investors and venture capitalists to selected startups. Recently, the top 10 selected startups participating in this programme flew into Kuala Lumpur to meet with RHB and its heads of business to gain more insights into the financial services industry in a separate session.

We are a loyal customer of RHB Bank for more than 10 years and we know how the bank evolves from time to time. Gone are the days of using cheques to pay credit card bills with more convenient way of Internet banking. RHB Bank has transformed one of the real contenders in banking to provide the best solution for its customers. The service level in RHB Bank branches have improved tremendously too with more personalised services by the officers. We are sure that they must have did some transformations in their standard operating procedure. Overall, FinTechathon is a great success and we hope to see more similar events by RHB Bank in near future.

For more information, please log on to http://www.startupbootcamp.org/accelerator/fintech-singapore.html.

Wilson Ng