DBS announces launch of New Solutions to bolster Singaporeans’ Retirement Plans

DBS has revealed that it is ramping up its suite of digital financial planning solutions and tools to empower Singaporeans so they can get a head start in retirement planning and strengthen their financial resilience.

The solutions, which will be launched from this week (Starting 03/08/2020), include a new ‘Map your Money’ interactive dashboard which can project a customer’s future retirement needs based on their current finances, the firm said in a press release.

DBS is also introducing a retirement planning portal that helps customers to better understand estate planning topics, with access to relevant services such as CPF nomination, will writing and setting up a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA).

DBS’ new solutions will help customers and their Wealth Planning Managers identify and address any blind spots or gaps in their retirement planning lifecycle, whether a customer is accumulating assets or moving into the decumulation phase. According to DBS’ data, a third of DBS’ customers presently have negative cash flow. While most DBS customers know when they want to retire, they are less certain about how long their nest egg will last. They also do not know how to supplement their cash and CPF savings with investments.

Jeremy Soo, Head, Consumer Banking Group, Singapore, DBS, said: “During these uncertain times when people are worried about declining incomes and outliving their savings, DBS has an even greater responsibility to extend our expertise in managing money and simplifying retirement planning for Singaporeans. Coupled with our partnership with CPF, we are offering Singaporeans an industry-first holistic retirement proposition that provides greater clarity around their financial future based on the assets they have, including those held under government schemes such as CPF and the Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS). This unparalleled access to insights and resources will enable Singaporeans to make more informed investment decisions that will strengthen their financial resilience during their golden years and protect the financial health of their loved ones.”

Irene Kang, Group Director (Communications), CPF Board, said: “CPF is an important foundation of retirement for many Singaporeans. We congratulate DBS for taking the initiative to make retirement planning more accessible to everyone, and we welcome similar collaborations with other financial institutions.”

‘Map your Money’

With the “Map Your Money” function, integrated within DBS’ digital advisory tool NAV Planner, DBS customers can now plan for their golden years, says the firm. The function pulls together customers’ existing assets held within and outside DBS, and projects their future income based on pre-defined assumptions, so they can better visualise their future cashflow situation via an integrated chart.

‘Map your Money’ also integrates baseline CPF and SRS rules to provide a hassle-free experience for customers when assessing their financial future. They can then choose from a menu of investment solutions, designed to be accessible to all, to boost their investment portfolios.

DBS is also using facial recognition technology and artificial intelligence to help users better visualise their retirement future. Dubbed ‘Face your Future’, the tool, which will be launched in August 2020, taps on algorithms to estimate a customer’s retirement needs based on his or her lifestyle choices and even creates a photographic portrait of how the customer looks at retirement age.

Evy Wee, Head of Financial Planning and Personal Investing, Singapore, DBS, said: “We’ve found that many procrastinate on retirement planning because the different rules, calculations and information required to get started can often be intimidating. Our retirement solutions aim to simplify a complex journey. For Map your Money, customers simply need to indicate their retirement aims, and the tool does the rest of the work – automatically taking into consideration varied factors such as cashflows, income, lifespan, CPF, SRS rules and schemes – to provide the requisite retirement projections and insights. There is no magic number that customers need to set aside. All they need is to ensure they have sufficient money to fund their desired quality of life after they retire, and our solutions easily map the way forward for them.”

DBS Retirement Planning Portal

DBS is also reportedly launching a new virtual Retirement Planning Portal for customers who are keen to safeguard the financial security of their loved ones but may not have the necessary knowledge or skills to ensure that their estate will be properly handled after their deaths. The portal tackles the common challenges faced by customers in understanding estate planning and aggregates relevant resources within a single portal, making it easier for customers to find the information they need and seek help.

For a start, the portal will offer services, provided by DBS’ partners, that allow customers to:

• Access CPF nominations online quickly: To date, 57% of CPF members, who are eligible to make nominations, have not done so.
• Make wills: The benefit of writing a Will is to ensure that assets are distributed according to the wishes of the deceased and avoid a lengthy and potentially costly probate process. Only an estimated one in 10 people in Singapore has written a will.
• Apply for Lasting Power of Attorney: Against the backdrop of Singapore’s ageing population, customers might want to understand how to get someone to make decisions on their behalf if they become mentally incapacitated by applying for an LPA. About 67,000 people have appointed someone to make decisions on their behalf if they become mentally incapacitated.
• Arrange for a Special Needs Trust Company (SNTC) care plan: This is to ensure that those with special needs will be well taken care of by a personalised care plan. SNTC is the only non-profit trust company in Singapore to provide affordable trust services to persons with special needs. While it is estimated that 3% of the Singapore population, between 18 and 49, have disabilities, SNTC’s social work-trained case managers have worked with caregivers to develop only 3,000 care plans for their dependents with special needs.

Customers can access financial planning information through NAV Planner, or consult DBS’ Wealth Planning Managers via the bank’s virtual TeleAdvisory consultation service. Since NAV Planner’s launch in April this year, more than one million users have used the digital advisory platform to do budgeting and monitor their investment performance, as well as obtain personalised financial insights and recommendations.