{"id":2402,"date":"2026-01-20T17:44:35","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T17:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/wptest\/2026\/01\/20\/ocbc-bank-unveils-fintech-and-innovation-unit-the-open-vault\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T18:00:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T18:00:38","slug":"ocbc-bank-unveils-fintech-and-innovation-unit-the-open-vault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/2026\/01\/20\/ocbc-bank-unveils-fintech-and-innovation-unit-the-open-vault\/","title":{"rendered":"OCBC Bank Unveils FinTech and Innovation Unit The Open Vault"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Open Vault, the FinTech and Innovation unit of OCBC Bank (Malaysia) Berhad has been official unveiled by Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) vice president of Growth Ecosystem Development, Norhizam Kadir.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Norhizam said the creation of the Bank\u2019s unit on the 27<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> floor of Wisma Lee Rubber, Jalan Melaka, is expected to drive OCBC Bank\u2019s progression into the digital era.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe are pleased to see OCBC Bank committing itself to an initiative that seeks to engage more deeply with FinTech companies globally,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The move is expected to act as a catalyst for the burgeoning FinTech segment. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to OCBC Bank chief executive officer, Datuk Ong Eng Bin, partnership with FinTechs is growing to become an invaluable part of the Bank\u2019s problem-solving approach, and the setting up of the physical office will lend impetus to realising its objectives. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cDigitalisation and innovation are not new to us at OCBC Bank, in fact, we have been deepening our digitalisation efforts significantly over the past few years. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe Open Vault will be dedicated to activities that engage the expertise of the FinTech community,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ong added that The Open Vault, as OCBC Bank\u2019s FinTech and Innovation Unit, is tasked with redefining banking through co-innovation with FinTech firms around the globe. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe Open Vault is now our very own hub for experimentation, it will serve to validate new ideas and shape the Bank of the future with a focus on offering seamless customer experience, harnessing the power of data and establishing an enriched journey for our customers,\u201d said Ong.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Earlier this year, The Open Vault partnered with two US-based FinTech companies, Ondot Systems Inc and EZMCOM Inc, to explore innovative approaches to tackling two long-standing banking challenges.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The challenges put forward to the two FinTech companies have to do, respectively, with embedding the Bank into the lifestyle spending journey of urban customers in Malaysia, and adoption of non-traditional methods to identify and authenticate a customer\u2019s identity and business operations without any face-to-face interaction. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If all goes well, the results of the collaborative efforts with Ondot Systems and EZMCOM on technology experimentations will serve as a guide for commercialising the technology solution at a later time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OCBC Bank had before that announced it is embarking on a year-long regulatory sandbox testing of a Secure Chat Banking Mobile Application following approval to do so from BNM under the Financial Technology Regulatory Sandbox Framework.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If successful, the OCBC Secure Chat Banking Mobile App will become the country\u2019s first banking solution to enable premier banking customers to communicate with, and give financial transaction instructions to, their relationship managers securely via a mobile app.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On the business banking front, OCBC Bank earlier announced a tie-up with Peoplender Sdn Bhd (Peoplender) to enhance access to financing for micro, small and new businesses. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The effort is operationalised through Peoplender\u2019s wholly-owned peer-to-peer financing platform Fundaztic.com, which is licensed by the Securities Commission. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The collaboration sees OCBC Bank referring to Peoplender viable SMEs seeking wider financing options to enhance and support their business growth.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Open Vault, the FinTech and Innovation unit of OCBC Bank (Malaysia) Berhad has been official unveiled by Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) vice president of Growth Ecosystem Development, Norhizam Kadir. Norhizam said the creation of the Bank\u2019s unit on the 27th floor of Wisma Lee Rubber, Jalan Melaka, is expected to drive OCBC Bank\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4218,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402\/revisions\/4218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malaysian-business.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}