3 in 5 Singaporeans willing to share data for cheaper banking products

Users are willing to share data on their income, location and lifestyle habits.

Six in ten consumers in Singapore would be willing to share significant personal information like income, location data and lifestyle information with their bank and insurer in exchange for more affordable and personalised banking products, according to a from consultancy firm Accenture.

As many as 87% of consumers would be willing to share income, location and lifestyle habit data for rapid loan approval, and 80% would do so to receive personalised offers based on their location, such as discounts from a retailer.

About half (53%) want their bank to provide updates on how much money they have until their next pay day, and 59% want savings tips based on spending habits.

This bodes well for the open banking agenda and is in line with earlier Accenture study findings which revealed that a third of commercial bank customers in Singapore have already trialed open banking platforms in 2018.

Also read: Singapore still beats Hong Kong over Asia's open banking readiness crown

Singaporean consumers also showed strong support for personalised insurance premiums, with 72% interested in receiving adjusted car insurance premiums based on safe driving and 53% in exchange for life insurance premiums tied to a healthy lifestyle.

This is in line with the finding that 85% would provide personal data, to their insurer if they believe it would help reduce the possibility of injury or loss.

“Increasingly, consumers also want to share more of their personal data to make their lives easier and more interconnected, particularly when it comes to their finances, so banks and insurers need to heed the call for those types of hyper-personal services and products,” Divyesh Vithlani, a managing director at Accenture who leads its Financial Services practice in ASEAN said in a statement.

Consumer appetite for sharing significant personal data with financial firms was high in China and India, at 67% and 69% respectively. That rate was even higher in some Southeast Asian markets, with 81% of respondents in Indonesia and 74% in Thailand saying the same.

Consumers are more skeptical in the West especially after the General Data Protection Regulation kicked into effect in May with only half of users in the U.S. and 40% in both the U.K. and Germany willing to share more data with banks and insurers in return for personalised services.