Customers no longer need to visit a branch and can apply for an account on their smartphones by downloading the bank’s app, UOB Mighty, and providing the necessary information.

An employee of the bank will then visit the customer for verification and providing account details.

The new service was recently honoured as the Online Banking Initiative of the Year – Vietnam at the 2018 Asian Banking & Finance Retail Banking Awards.

Harry Loh, chief executive officer, UOB Vietnam, said: “In key cities such as HCM City, more than four in five people use their smartphones to conduct tasks quickly and conveniently.

“To ensure UOB continues to create products and services relevant to the lifestyle needs and behaviour of consumers, we applied design thinking principles to understand how we could simplify the account opening process. This led to the development of our mobile account opening service. Ultimately, we want to harness technology to make banking simpler, safer and smarter for our customers, from their very first encounters with us.

“Previously, our branch colleagues had to fill out forms and enter data into the system manually. Both are very repetitive and time-consuming tasks. The mobile account opening service removes the need for these tasks, freeing up our people to focus on more personalised services, such as financial advice.”

UOB is a leading Singaporean bank with a global network of more than 500 offices in 19 countries and territories in the Asia Pacific, Europe and North America.