OCBC wants ideas from 26 interns for bank of the future

SINGAPORE — Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC), Singapore’s second-largest lender, has selected more than two dozen bright young minds from a pool of over 500 applicants for a six-month internship that will require the students to think of a solution to build the bank for the future.

The 26 penultimate-year undergraduates from the top Singapore universities — National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore Management University (SMU) and Singapore University of Social Sciences — were shortlisted in a rigorous one-day selection process called Ideation Day last Friday, OCBC said on Monday (April 17).

The interns — known as FRANKpreneurs after the bank’s FRANK by OCBC programme targeting the youth and young working adults market segments — were selected as they have proven to be game changers who are bold and innovative. The OCBC FRANKpreneurship aims to give a robust and holistic internship experience, and the students will be attached to specific units in the bank, from retail banking, corporate banking and treasury, to fintech, technology and even human resources, to understudy specially selected line managers, the lender said.

“One way it goes beyond conventional internship programmes is by setting the 26 students to work creatively on a problem statement that is not confined to an existing banking issue. The problem statement requires students to come up with an innovative solution to ‘build the bank for the new world economy’ as they envisage what their ideal bank of the future will be like,” it said.

The programme will start on May 8 with a 10-week attachment with the bank, and carry on for another 12 weeks during the school term where the FRANKpreneurs will continue to refine and work as teams on their concept and presentation. This will culminate in a grand showcase event in November, where the FRANKpreneurs will present and pitch their ideas to a panel of judges, including OCBC’s senior management and line managers, as well as university professors.

Mr Jason Ho, OCBC’s Head of Group Human Resources, said: “The OCBC FRANKpreneurship is designed to be different from other internship programmes in the market. Throughout the six months, 26 outstanding students will be immersed in a business environment with hands-on work experience, while working on cross-divisional projects using a ‘start-up’ approach where they will be exposed to the methodologies, thinking and journey of a start-up.”