In order to support a growing demand for specialised analytic talent across the region, DBS Bank, A*STAR’s Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R) and the National University of Singapore (NUS) have formed a three-year partnership.
Through this partnership, NUS students will have the opportunity to work on real banking challenges with data analytics experts from I2R and professionals at DBS at the DBS-I2R laboratory established in 2014.
As part of NUS master’s students’ final project, the students will be supervised by professors from NUS business school and school of computing affiliated to NUS business analytics centre.
“The concrete activities that we are undertaking with I2R and DBS show that banking leaders are fully committed to delivering improved customer experiences in the industry for Asia,” Professor Jorge Sanz, director of the NUS business analytics centre, said.
“These projects are important because our students not only learn business analytic techniques with actual banking data, but also have an opportunity to contribute towards improving service quality in consumer banking. DBS and I2R are the perfect partners for our Business Analytics Centre and our Masters degree students. The outcomes from the first wave of projects were truly outstanding.”
The first batch of students who benefitted from this agreement completed their final projects in areas such as leveraging on predictive analytics to further improve the efficiency of ATM and cash acceptance machines preventive maintenance measures.
They were also involved in predicting customer wait time at branches to enable the bank to manage capacity and resource utilisation, and have achieved a deeper understanding of the bank’s potential customer spending behaviour and preferences.
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The last five years has seen DBS grow its team of data analysts by about three times as it leverages on data analytics to optimise its operations, gain deeper understanding of its customers and further integrates banking services into their daily lives.
“DBS’ innovations are driven by the desire to enhance our customers’ experience and data is a key component to identifying areas that will make a difference to them. The use of data analytics for businesses has evolved over time and we are pleased to partner NUS and I2R to further strengthen our analytics capabilities,” said Sameer Gupta, regional head of business analytics and customer experience at DBS Bank.
Gupta added: “Our partnership will also provide students with greater opportunities to work on data analytics projects with the bank and helps to ensure that the future talent will be better equipped to handle business challenges.”
“The joint partnership between DBS and I2R which now includes NUS will enable NUS students to have a hands-on experience in developing big data solutions to enhance DBS’ service for its customers safely and conveniently. This is a good example of I2R’s engagement with the industry and the academia”, said Dr Lee Shiang Long, executive director, A*STAR’s Institute for Infocomm Research.
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