DBS Bank in Singapore closed a floor of its offices following confirmation that an employee tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus. About 300 employees vacated Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 3 at DBS Asia Central on February 12, 2020.
In Hong Kong several banks moved to cut banking hours, if not close banking services totally in some branches, during the early weeks of the COVID-19 outbreak, to the consternation of banking customers.
In the mainland, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued a series of preferential policies to help businesses better cope with the challenges of operating business as usual during the COVID-19 outbreak. One such circular focused on improving online financial services.
With financial services customers avoiding in-person business transactions and large numbers of employees working from home, financial institutions need to expand their technical and online service capabilities quickly.
OneConnect Financial Technology Co. says its Smart Office Solutions is an end-to-end solution for banks, insurers, and investment managers.
Using artificial intelligence (AI), big data and blockchain, the company claims its smart office solutions will enable financial institutions to ensure online operations throughout the entire business process, including customer acquisition and marketing, risk control and products and back-end systems, operations, maintenance and management.
For financial institutions with employees working from home, OneConnect has integrated the Ping An Group applications’ Lite app to enable employees to communicate via text, email, voice and video calls, voice input and AI translation. It can also handle travel expenses reimbursement and other processes.
OneConnect leverages the Zhi Niao app to offer online teaching, learning, research, testing and management. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, tens of thousands of insurance agents in the field have taken up the app. On February 11 alone, one insurance firm used Zhi Niao for live broadcasting, recording 17,000 sessions that were viewed over the course of the one day by some 2.45 million people, with, over 700,000 accessing the live broadcast simultaneously at one point.
OneConnect's intelligent enterprise system also enables users to handle human resources (HR), administrative and financial responsibilities, for a coordinated, data-driven operation and management model.
