B2B Cambodia sat down with Tallal Ur Rehman, Chief Digital Banking Officer at Wing Bank, to discuss the bank’s innovative ‘Save for a Goal’ accounts that allow customers to set specific savings targets, encouraging better personal finance management and smarter savings practices.
B2B Cambodia: I want to start by congratulating Wing Bank for recently being honoured with the ‘Excellence in Innovation - Savings Account Services - Cambodia’ title at the Global Banking & Finance Awards 2025, specifically recognising ‘Save For a Goal’. What does this award mean for Wing Bank?
Tallal Ur Rehman: “Oh, it means everything. We're very happy to receive this award. It solidifies the vision that the management has, it increases our confidence in knowing that what we're doing is the right thing. Innovation is for customers, at the end of the day it's not internal, it's external. That's what we try to do everyday here at Wing Bank, and winning this award for ‘Save for a Goal’ is amazing, because this product is amazing.
“It's nothing like your normal [banking] product out there in the market right now. The maximum you see, [in terms of innovation], banks are coming out with term deposits, which, again, is a very run-of-the-mill product. What this award means, for us, is that ‘Save for a Goal’ was meant to be an innovative, unique product offering, which not only helps people save but also manages their personal finances better.”
B2B Cambodia: How is the ‘Save for a Goal’ account different from a regular savings account?
Tallal Ur Rehman: “Save for Goal is a goal-based saving use case where you can set goals for each purchase that you want to make. Goals can be anything, for example, if we want to travel to Japan, want to go camping, or want to save for education next year, any of those goals can be taken up as an option, and that's where the product is very unique—it gives you the ability to customise your savings. [For instance, you can set it up so that] it can make two weekly deductions from your account towards the goal, or it can be a monthly thing you match up with your payroll date. If you want to save individually, that is an option, but you can also save in groups, which is quite unique, especially when you want to, for example, go camping. I think that really benefits a group of friends who want to Save for a Goal. Apart from that, it’s not just a savings tool… It's also generating wealth for you, giving up to 5 per cent interest on your savings, which you can enjoy from the time that you start saving.
“If you consider Cambodia, along with any other developing country, most of these countries have a younger population. The average age in Cambodia is 27 years old. [Digital] banking in Cambodia, in my opinion, was popularised around the time when Bakong came in and COVID happened, that’s when financial inclusion really shot up.
At the end of the day, what ‘Save for a Goal’ does is educate all those people who have maybe entered their working careers three or four years ago and who did not see their parents invest their hard earned money into proper banking products. What we do is we educate those people, help build discipline as to how they can gather wealth but also grow their wealth as well.
B2B Cambodia: So would you say Wing Bank’s main goal with this product is to support financial education and inclusion?
Tallal Ur Rehman: “When I sit in a meeting where ‘Save for a Goal’ is being discussed, for example, or some campaign that we want to do around ‘Save for a Goal’, the motivation there is always to help people manage their personal finances better. Before, the objective was to introduce banking products or financial services to people. Now, the next phase for Cambodia is to offer these same customers a deeper experience with these products. It cannot be just based on transferring money to a merchant, or making purchases on a day-to-day basis. It has to be more than that, and we are responsible for it, to create these experiences for everyone, for all Cambodians. So definitely, the objective is there to create this financial discipline for people.”
B2B Cambodia: What’s next for savings innovation at Wing Bank?
Tallal Ur Rehman: “We've actually done a lot of research around these topics, especially savings. Recently, it has come to our knowledge that these [savings] products have started to take centre stage for customers in Cambodia. Before it was loans, and I think we have a long history with lending, both in rural areas and urban areas.
Our idea is to make savings fun, to make savings real-time, to make savings not difficult. In a nutshell, I want to say that I want to make it much more convenient and easy so that the customer doesn't feel like, if he puts money into a savings account, that he can’t take it out anytime without facing some sort of penalty or negative feedback from the banking ecosystem.
“That's mainly what I'm trying to do, that's mainly what the team is trying to do, and that's mainly what the management's direction is at this current time.”