Mexico Bank Buys Into Singapore Startup in a Big Way

For Singapore startup Lucep, their first product hit came from India’s banking industry, with a virtual queue service called VirtuaQ, reports Tech In Asia’s Malavika Velayanikal.

From Virtual Queues to Omnichannel

A virtual queue does away with the line at the counter. Instead of standing and waiting, a customer takes a place in the queue from a phone or a kiosk, then gets a message when it’s their turn. For a busy bank branch or clinic, that means a calmer waiting room and a clearer picture of how many people are waiting and for what.

Lucep’s own account of how it grew follows that path. In a March 2018 post, co-founder Zal Dastur wrote that the company started with software-based virtual queue management, then realized it also needed to help businesses engage customers online at the moment they wanted to talk. That led to a callback platform, which grew into an enterprise system for handling customer requests from websites, mobile apps, email, SMS, social media and in person.

The next generation of VirtuaQ, Lucep OmniPath, is what COO and co-founder Zal Dastur calls “an omnichannel management system” built for banks and medical clinics.

“Omnichannel” means treating all of those channels as one conversation. A customer who starts a loan inquiry on the bank’s website, follows up by email and then walks into a branch shouldn’t have to explain themselves three times. The system’s job is to keep track of who the customer is and what they need, wherever they show up.

The Mexican Bank Deal

The impact has been international: A leading Mexican bank chain bought into the product in a big way, licensing it for 1,800 branches.

In the same LinkedIn post, Dastur described the client as one of the world’s largest banks, dealing with a challenging problem at a regional bank it had acquired in Mexico. The task was to turn a network of traditional branches into digitally enabled ones, with standardized branding, central administration and reporting, faster service, shorter queues, and links to the bank’s existing core banking and CRM systems.

According to Dastur, the client had set aside about $1 billion for the wider branch transformation, covering digital banking, technology platforms, smart branches, ATMs and services for key customer groups. Lucep’s system was rolled out to a first wave of digital branches as a pilot, and Dastur wrote that the client was expanding the setup to its bank networks in other countries. The post doesn’t name the bank.

Reaching New Banking Customers

“A lot of banks are looking for ways in which they can reach customers that have never dealt with banks before. These customers expect a bank to behave like any other consumer business,” Dastur said in an interview with Tech In Asia.

That’s the heart of the pitch. People who are used to ordering food, booking rides and shopping on their phones judge a bank by the same standard. Long lines, repeated paperwork and staff who can’t see a customer’s history all make a branch feel out of step, especially for someone who has never had a bank account and isn’t sure they need one.

What Happened Next

Lucep’s products have kept evolving. VirtuaQ still exists as its own queue management brand. Its website says it was founded by the team at Singapore-based Lucep Pte. Ltd. and that it has worked with banks, hospitals, governments, retailers and citizen service organizations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, VirtuaQ pitched QR-code queuing to banks, letting customers wait nearby instead of lining up inside branches with limited capacity.

Lucep itself has shifted toward sales. It now describes itself as a lead management stack, offering automated lead qualification, lead routing and AI voice agents that handle calls across sales and service, run as a fully managed service. Its site says it works with CRMs including Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics and Zoho.

The thread running through all of it is the same one that won the Mexican deal: getting a business to respond to a customer at the moment the customer is ready, instead of making them wait.

What It Means for Startups

Lucep’s story is a reminder that a small Singapore startup can land a very large enterprise customer on the other side of the world, if it solves a specific, expensive problem. Here, the problem was making 1,800 branches feel like part of one modern bank.

It also shows the value of listening to what customers actually need. A virtual queue was the first product, but customers wanted more than a shorter line, and the company followed that demand into new products.