South East Asia's second-largest bank, OCBC, is to invest $500 million in Punggol Digital District (PDD), with the set-up of a new 430,000 sq ft innovation hub and a multi-million dollar strategic partnership with Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT).
The new innovation hub - OCBC Punggol - will play a pivotal role in continuing the bank’s transformation efforts when completed in 1st quarter of 2027. The multi-million-dollar partnership with SIT is aimed at driving innovation and talent development in fintech, through the establishment of a learning lab and scholarships.
OCBC Punggol will occupy about 430,000 square feet of space, equivalent to about seven football fields, and will house up to 4,000 employees. Most of them will be from the bank’s technology workforce, especially those working on emerging technologies such as quantum computing and mixed reality.
The establishment of the new hub builds on the bank’s investments in its seven-year digital core roadmap to modernise its technology architecture, in play since 2019.
Over $250 million was invested in Phase 1 (2019 to 2022) to refresh the bank’s key online and offline channel systems across its markets, while a further $300 million hs been earmarked for 2023 to 2025, with customer-led design and development as the focus.
Alongside the new hub, OCBC is funding the establishment of SIT’s state-of-the-art learning lab at SIT Punggol campus. The lab will be equipped with up to 100 Bloomberg terminals to provide hands-on experience on financial analysis tools for students, faculty and industry partners.
An Analytics and Innovation Lab will serve as a hub for coding and development activities focused on financial analytics and creating fintech AI applications.
Educational outreach, such as workshops on financial literacy, financial planning, and retirement planning will be conducted in the Lab as part of OCBC’s and SIT’s engagement with the residents in Punggol and overall community development efforts.