AI expected to revolutionise Singapore financial services

A recently released report by Salesforce highlights that a significant majority of Singaporean consumers anticipate Artificial Intelligence (AI) playing a greater role in the financial services industry than in other sectors.

The "Connected Financial Services" report, which surveyed 9,500 financial services institution (FSI) consumers globally — including 500 in Singapore — found that 60% of Singaporean consumers have positive expectations about the integration of AI in financial services. Within this group, millennials and Gen Z showed an even stronger disposition, with 63% and 53% respectively expressing confidence in AI's impact on the industry.

The optimism about AI extends to its potential to expedite financial transactions, with 74% of Singaporean respondents expecting AI to hasten processes in financial services. However, despite these high expectations, only 17% of Singapore consumers are fully satisfied with the level of personalisation offered by their banks, indicating a noticeable gap between consumer expectations and the current services delivered by FSIs.

This sentiment is further echoed in Salesforce's "State of the AI Connected Customer" report, which notes that 75% of Singapore consumers expect seamless information sharing among FSI representatives. In practice, however, 55% report often having to repeat or re-explain information, highlighting an area for potential improvement in FSI customer service.

"Consumers today expect highly personalised services, yet banks struggle to meet this demand," remarked Sujith Abraham, Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Salesforce ASEAN. "Agentic AI solutions like Agentforce can help by providing a limitless digital workforce for banks to scale personalised services at speed. Imagine AI agents acting as personal digital bankers, responding to customer queries 24/7 on topics such as saving plans, loan affordability and investment options. By complementing human agents, banks can scale personalisation in a way they never have before. Key to success is to build a single customer view by unifying customer data sitting across different systems in the organisation, enabling agents to be accurate and trustworthy. This empowers hyper-personalisation, aligning customer journeys with the best offerings."

The report also identified that differentiated service and customer experiences could outweigh concerns about rates and fees for many consumers. Specifically, 44% of Singaporean consumers — including 47% among high earners — would remain with a provider offering excellent service even if fees increased.

The need for building trust in AI implementations is deemed crucial as agentic AI functionalities roll out. Currently, 65% of Singapore consumers display some level of trust in AI agents within financial services, although only 12% express full confidence. The report outlines that the primary factors necessary to build consumer trust include ensuring transparency in AI use, the accuracy of AI outputs, and the validation of generated outputs.