Standard Chartered reports historic highs of digital adoption

Its wealth management services grew more than two-fold during the circuit breaker.

Standard Chartered Bank Singapore has recorded exceptionally high levels of digital adoption and foresees that digital will lead the way as a mainstream banking channel moving forward. The bank expects digital services to be a key growth driver for its retail banking business in 2020.

Standard Chartered Singapore’s digital services saw its digital adoption rates rise to historic-high levels as a result of the circuit breaker measures, the lender revealed in a press release.

The bank recorded a more than 30% YoY jump in the volume of digital transactions made in 2020. Its mobile banking active users increased by 42% YoY during the same month.

Segment wise, StanChart’s digital sign-ups for its credit card services grew 71% YoY for the first four months of 2020 compared to the same period a year earlier, whilst wealth and investment-related transactions more than doubled.

Surprisingly, even the bank’s digitally-active silver clients aged 55 have ramped up digital transactions. FAST transfers by silvers in the first quarter of 2020 grew 45% YoY, and online credit card bill payment grew by over 20% YoY for the same period, according to data from the lender.

StanChart Singapore stated that it expects digital services to be the key driver of growth for its retail banking business in 2020. Recently, the bank made all service requests available on its digital platforms.

“Product sales on digital platforms in Q1 2020 comprised almost half of the overall sales – an almost twofold increase from the same period last year,” the bank said in a press release. “In February, the bank experienced an all-time high for online credit card sign-ups with over three times the 2018 monthly average and over two times the 2019 monthly average.”

Additionally, in April, 80% of credit card sales were via digital channels, the bank added.

The bank also saw a 13-fold increase in online current and savings account volumes for Q1. The volume of time deposits in the bank also increased ninefold.

Meanwhile, StanChart’s wealth management arm saw the number of transactions and volume of digital investment platforms grow over 200% YoY, whilst the number of monthly digital transactions on its online mutual funds platform skyrocketed 238%.

Further, monthly digital transactions in the bank’s online trading platform reportedly soared 160% since the beginning of 2020. In April 2020, the platform saw a 129% spike in client applications compared with the average monthly rate in 2019.