09.2019 Cover Story
Beyond Tradition and Subvert Imagination Far Eastern International Bank to Create a New Financial Bureau
Far Eastern Magazine / Editorial Room
Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission has actively promoted the development of financial science and technology in recent years. Among them, the launch of pure online banking has subverted the long-standing banking ecosphere. Far Eastern International Bank is ready for a new era of financial industry. Bankee Community Bank, a sub-brand launched at the end of last year, shocks the industry with an open community financial platform. With more and more perfect functions and new products being launched, the digital transformation of Far Eastern International Bank continues to move forward. We invited Vice President Dai Songzhi and Minister Zhou Xinhao to share with you in this issue how Far Eastern International Bank reverses its thinking and take a different way!
Communal Sharing Birth of the New Bank Model
Unlike most digital banks, Far Eastern International Bank's Bankee Community Bank is a platform economy model for "community liquidation", which encourages customers to run their own "community circle" so that everyone can become a banker and own a "branch" in the virtual world. As a result, Vice President Dai Songzhi not only pays attention to the number of new users, but also f the number of branches. "As far as July this year, more than 200 branches of different sizes have been established in the Bankee, all of which have actually applied for credit cards or deposit products. More than 300 of them belong to large-scale" Branches ". Since we put emphasis on "community liquidation", it is believed that people from all walks of life would most like to know how much benefit these community circle owners can actually get. Vice President Dai cited the largest branch of Bankee (about 430 people) as an example: "If we take the interest earned by people in the circle on average demand deposit of 50,000 yuan per month, plus the gold diamond grade points obtained by the average consumption amount of credit cards of 8,000 yuan per month, plus the award of MGM activities for 100 gold diamond grade points per person recommended, circle owners can increase income of 615,600 yuan in a year which is considerable."
Despite Bankee's successive promulgation of "current deposit interest rate of 2.6% ", "1.2% return on domestic credit card consumption", "3% points of credit card return on overseas and cross-border online purchases" and "10 times points for exchanging goods"... Such activities are loved by young people, but Vice President Dai disclosed that "deposit and credit card business is only a drain commodity, and the "Financial Department Store" which will be launched in the second half of this year will highlight the innovation of Bankee."
New Invested Commodities in Cross-industry Cooperation
In the era of digital finance, it is not new for science and technology industry to step into the financial industry. Under such circumstances, Vice President Dai believes that the financial industry should take the initiative to compete and cooperate across industries and improve the digital financial service network through cooperation with start-ups. Therefore, in Bankee's "Financial Department Store" service, with the help of start-ups, many innovative investment products have been launched, so that customers have more choices.
The birth of innovative commodities originated from a secret base, Far Eastern International Bank, which was stationed in FinTechSpace, Taiwan's first accelerator of financial technological innovation, established the Bankee Enterprise Laboratory of the Individual Community Bank, and tried the atypical investment model with the start-ups. One of the cooperative schemes is the popular "P2P lending" in recent years. "Many small and medium-sized enterprises in Taiwan often have short-term cash turnover needs, so the mode of ticketing and borrowing has long been popular among the public. Our "P2P lending" is a platform for creditor's rights provided by new companies. Borrowers release creditor's rights bills and let investors compete at 6-8% interest. Compared with fixed deposits, it can greatly improve investment returns. Vice President Dai further explained, "In this project, P2P start-ups exert the ability of bill auditing, use innovative technology to screen more secure bill claims, Far Eastern International Bank provides financial assistance, including: the trust preservation of bills, the cash flow service of customer investment, etc., and two sides combine strength, exert the benefits of FinTech to achieve win-win situation. " In addition to P2P start-ups, the start-up with "financial unicorn" potential which was nominated by Common Wealth Magazine is also a partner of Bankee. Vice President Dai said, "Usually, buying and selling overseas funds can not immediately know the transaction price, but based on the base day of net value calculation, the information is often not accurate enough. Especially when the fund is redeemed, buyers will have to wait 3 to 5 working days, or even 10 working days to get the money. This is a major weak point in the investment process. It also urges "good investment" to create a more immediate and transparent fund platform, which allows buyers and sellers to trade directly on the platform, and saves the time when it comes to the liquidation of the company. In the meantime, we can complete the business by price delivery on the same day. " At present, this cooperation project has entered the stage of sandbox experiment for supervision, and can be formally launched after audition. "Bankee has always looked at FinTech with an open mind, focusing on managing customers together, and will continue to cooperate with start-ups in the future, providing financial services to non-financial industry, new entrepreneurs and companies in different industries, and continuously promoting cross-industry and innovative financial cooperation," said Vice President Dai. " In addition to working with start-ups to develop more diversified products, Far Eastern International Bank and Yuan Ze University's "Community Thermometer" are also expected to be launched in the second half of the year. In fact, the observation of community voice is often used in elections to understand the opinions of netizens about candidates. Vice President Dai, who is quick-thinking, intends to apply it to investment. "First, we use the Internet crawler technology to find out the hot investment topics on the Internet. Then, we use AI to screen a large amount of information and shave out the useless information, find out the key factors which made the issue hot, and finally present with the concept of thermometer. Because the cold and hot of thermometer can represent the positive and negative voice, so it can provide customers with more intelligent financial information and recommend commodity information”. In other words, AI should be used as an auxiliary tool to collect information to make information more comprehensive and objective. The right of final decision is still in the hands of investors.
Reversal Thinking Gathering of Talents of the New Generation
Far Eastern International Bank and Yuan Ze University’s cooperation is more than that. In view of the growing demand for digital talents, the two sides jointly organized the "2019 Digital Creativity Competition" this year to enable students of Discipline of Finance to practice community marketing from thinking and writing online copywriter, we media management to activities organization, film shooting and editing, setting accurate target audiences, and advertising and analysis, etc, thereby accumulating students' digital ability, marketing ability, executive ability. During the process, Minister Zhou found that "Yuan Ze University students are really creative, they have diverse ideas and excellent executive ability, and are flexible in their work. Sometimes they even ask questions at two or three o'clock in the morning, which made people see a new generation of young people with different working styles. "
With the successful experience of the cooperation with Yuan Ze University, Far Eastern International Bank has expanded its scale and participated in the FinTech Campus Innovation Successor in FinTechSpace, a financial technology innovation accelerator promoted by Taiwan Financial Services Roundtable. At that time, financial institutions and financial technology start-ups offered more than 100 job vacancies, mostly for internships or part-time positions. Students are engaged in administration or they are required to be proficient in all kinds of work with strict conditions. Regardless of job content, all of them belong to traditional thinking. In order to break the framework and truly embrace the new digital economy era, Minister Zhou Xinhao put forward the "Bankee Community Bank Distant Internship Program", "These campus community bank managers do not have to work in fixed locations, they can work anywhere and anytime, and they can get points/credits as long as they complete tasks, making work like playing games."Flexible and interesting work mode is indeed loved by young people, and has become the most popular and competitive job vacancies in this event.
Click-and-Mortar New Business Opportunities Develop Infinitely
In response to the rapid changes in the digital age, Far Eastern International Bank should not only try various innovations with an open mind, but also carefully evaluate the feasibility of each innovation. It should also adjust flexibly at any time to meet the constantly updated regulations and technologies. Vice President Dai cited the handling of the cash flow as an example. "Far Eastern International Bank is responsible for many of the group affiliated enterprise's billing. In order to achieve a win-win situation, we continue to study more cost-effective ways. For example, Far EasTone Telecommunication used to adopt the NCCC system. Recently, they have adopted FISC system which saves 50% of the service charge, saving 40 to 50 million yuan for Far EasTone Telecommunication in one year, and it does not affect the convenience of consumers at all. "
In addition, this summer, Far Eastern International Bank also played a key role in the cash flow during the launch of HAPPY GO Pay that integrates group members and channels,. According to Vice President Dai's analysis, "Consumers pay because of consumption, they don’t consume because of payment. Therefore, the payment based on consumption scenario is more reasonable and feasible. i The electronic payment tools launched by family-mart, Pxmart All-China Federation and Xinguang all adopt similar models, and so will the newly launched HAPPY GO Pay. "
FinTech's hottest applications, "Unmanned Branch" was originally planned by Far Eastern International Bank, however, in response to the government's promotion for a new version of digital identity cards in 2020, identity verification can be carried out on mobile phones, and it is expected that the unmanned branch will evolve directly into a personal mobile branch. However, Vice President Dai is optimistic about the success of online banking, which has been heatedly discussed by the media recently. "All the businesses that online banking can do can be done by traditional banks, even because of the loosening of regulations, it will have a better chance to expand business opportunities in the future. Financial Supervisory Commission, for example, has proposed a dramatic loose of digital deposit account rules, including opening accounts by mobile phone identity certification, enterprise accounts, and loosening the age limit for opening accounts. Being aware of the new opportunity, we have planned to apply for the sandbox supervision of the telecommunication number accounts opening verification. On the other hand, as the new retail gradually moves towards the stage of click and mortar, the financial industry is no exception. After all, some services can’t be finished in one step in online banking, and the click and mortar is the future trend. "
As Vice-President Dai said, "The first step in the digital transformation of the financial industry is absolutely the transformation of Mindset. If we still hold on to traditional ideas, there will be no change. The reason why Far Eastern International Bank is able to cope with the new competitors' joining and changes is that it has already reversed its thinking, making Bankee full of differentiation and innovation, becoming one of the leaders of digital banks, and also opening a new era of digital finance for Far Eastern International Bank.
