OCBC Bank has become the first financial institution to bring Google Pay’s peer-to-peer (P2P) funds transfer service to Singapore. Singapore is currently the third country aside from the United States and India where this service is available.
With the integration of the Google Pay transaction services with OCBC Bank customer accounts, customers have since February 2020 had one more option for P2P transfers and payment for purchases.
Mr Ching Wei Hong, Head of Global Wealth Management & Consumer Banking at OCBC Bank, said: “OCBC has long been a champion supporting open payment ecosystems and promoting national payment schemes. With this partnership with Google Pay, OCBC customers can choose to pay their friends using Google Pay in addition to OCBC Pay Anyone with their linked OCBC Bank accounts.”
“Singaporeans continue to significantly increase their use of PayNow, with more than 70 million transactions worth S$12.16 billion in 2019. We believe that our partnership with Google Pay will continue to help drive this trend in 2020 and beyond,” he continued.
Mr Ching also explained how the ‘digital wallet’ approach that requires customers to top up an e-wallet and hold funds in one meant that interest was not earned. As such, the bank “put a lot of effort into developing OCBC Pay Anyone as an open-loop payment system, whereby customers literally ‘pay anyone’ directly from their bank accounts.”
“This in turn became the foundation of a strategy that has led us to develop payment solutions that are seamless, convenient and secured. With Google Pay strengthening it further, we expect to see the continued rise for the adoption rate of digital payments solutions among our customers in Singapore,” he concluded.
OCBC Bank customers can download the Google Pay mobile app onto their iOS or Android devices to make instant P2P transactions through PayNow – tapping on funds in their current or savings accounts. Google Pay harnesses PayNow to enable a customer to make real-time money transfers to all contacts who have linked their bank accounts to their mobile numbers.
