UOB has deployed an AI engine into its TMRW banking app that calculates the money needed to pay regular expenses and shifts any predicted leftovers into a higher interest-earning savings account.
The AI engine is built by Israeli fintech Personetics. UOB already uses other Personetics technology elsewhere in its digital banking operations.
The feature, called ‘Auto-Save’, is initially only available in the TMRW mobile banking app in Indonesia, but UOB said it will be “exploring ways to further expand the … feature across its key markets in ASEAN including Singapore in the near future.”
Personetics’ engine “analyses and predicts each customer’s past, current and future spending patterns, income, and everyday transactions to find safe-to-save money (i.e. excess amounts above average/typical cash outflows level),” the bank said.
“The app will then automatically move such variable amounts of money into a customer’s TMRW savings account to earn higher interest while still ensuring sufficient balances in their current account for any required payments or outflows.”
Customers can “opt-in and opt-out of the Auto-Save feature at any time,” it added.
Head of UOB TMRW and group digital banking Kevin Lam said in a statement that “the first step to achieving one’s financial goals always starts with savings, but savings can also be a pain point for many of our customers in Indonesia.”
Launching the new feature at Singapore Fintech Festival, Lam called Auto-Save “the first of its kind to be launched by a bank in Indonesia and Southeast Asia.”
UOB has previously used Personetics technology for customer engagement; it says “over 150 million personalised insights” have been delivered to customers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand since Personetics technology started to be used in 2018.
