DBS Bank has opened DBS Asia X. Located at the Sandcrawler Building in Fusionopolis, it is a 16,000 square feet innovation space. DBS is one of the first banks in the region to adopt human-centred design thinking.
DBS Asia X (DAX) has project pods and spaces, journey rooms, co-working spaces for up to 100 people as well as an auditorium and cafe. The opening of coincides with the inaugural week long Singapore FinTech Festival, and was officiated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Deputy Managing Director Jacqueline Loh and DBS CEO Piyush Gupta.
Over the past three years, DBS has been deeply immersed in furthering its digital transformation agenda. This includes embarking on a comprehensive and holistic mission to changing the culture and mindset of staff, re-architecting the bank's technology infrastructure, and leveraging Big Data, biometrics and artificial intelligence to reimagine banking.
Nurtured Over 100 Social Enterprises
The bank has also been actively engaging the FinTech ecosystem with programmes such as the DBS HotSpot, the first pre-accelerator programme created and wholly-run by an Asian bank. Over 40 start-ups were accelerated as part of the programme, which will now be housed at DAX. «We believe that innovation-led growth will drive our next phase of development towards a Smart Financial Centre,» Jacqueline Loh said.
In addition, the bank has also run a number of hackathons to discover new solutions and services to unlock further value in the financial services space. Through the DBS Foundation, the bank has supported and nurtured over 100 social enterprises.
Transforming DBS Into a 22,000 Person Start-up
«DBS Asia X underscores DBS’ ongoing commitment to shaping the future of banking and embracing the future of work. It is a purpose built facility for DBS employees from all over the region to come together, design and develop iconic customer journeys and work in close collaboration with start-ups and the broader FinTech community. We look towards helping to further Singapore's Smart Nation agenda as we transform DBS into a 22,000 person start-up,» Piyush Gupta said.
This year, more than 5,000 DBS employees were exposed to agile methodology and other digital concepts through customer journey workshops and hackathons held across the region. The bank has ran over 1,000 experiments and the bank’s senior managers are each responsible for owning for at least one customer journey, to collectively transform the overall DBS experience for customers and employees alike.
