UBS uses artificial intelligence to deliver personalised advice to wealthy clients

UBS, facing the threat of competition from Google and Amazon, has turned to a Singapore-based technology company that uses artificial intelligence for help in delivering personalised advice to its wealthy clients.

Sqreem Technologies beat some 80 teams competing in the Innovation Challenge, a contest organised by Switzerland's biggest bank that offered S$40,000 (HK$235,000) and a potential contract to the winner. Their task: extract the information most relevant to an individual client from an explosion of data and deliver this tailored content to clients' mobile phones, iPads and other digital devices.

"Banking is one of the most rudimentary industries when it comes to digitalisation," said Dirk Klee, chief operating officer for UBS wealth management. "EBay, Amazon - everything is getting more and more digital. The question is how we translate this into a similar experience for our clients."

Big global banks like UBS are turning to technology to mine data for insight on its customers that could help lenders stay competitive in the digital era. The introduction of mobile payment systems offered by internet giants like Google and Apple has alerted traditional banks to the potential threat from tech companies with vast databases and the knowhow to exploit them.

More than 70 per cent of financial institutions in North America said big data analytics offered them a significant advantage over their competition, Cap Gemini said in a report this year. More than 90 per cent of them said successful big data initiatives would determine the winners of the future.

Five finalists vied to win over a panel of judges at the bank's offices in Singapore on November 28. Klee said the bank chose Asia as the venue because, in addition to being a hub for wealth management, clients in the region were more likely to use mobile phones and other digital devices to interact with the bank.