It’s lunchtime in Singapore. And like many people, you feel like going to a food court for some laksa, or mee goreng. Traditionally, you would have to find some money, walk out of the office, join the queue at the stall, pay for the food with your cash, wait to pick it up and then go find a table. It’s a standard process. But DBS has come up with a better way through DBS FasTrack. Now, all you need to do is order on your smartphone, be notified when your food’s ready, walk up to the stall and collect your food. No queue, no wait, and perhaps most importantly, no cash. This is the Uber of lunchtime.

John Laurens leans back in his chair and looks out across the Singapore skyline. “Everything in the world has changed so much over the last 100 years, but there are fundamental aspects of trade finance that remain stubbornly anchored to the past,” he says. “Sure, there are new platforms and technologies but, fundamentally, documentation that is still in use today would be familiar to people in the 19th century.” For some banks and their clients, such familiarity might seem a comfort. But it clearly makes DBS’s head of transaction banking uncomfortable. Innovation for DBS is a matter of survival. And in the world of transaction banking the bank is aiming to be one step ahead of its rivals, two steps ahead of its clients and, as far as possible, in front of the disruption that is coming to this most traditional form of banking.

Many banks pay lip service to innovation, but none has embedded it as deeply into its operations as DBS.