OCBC Bank has brought Google Pay's peer-to-peer (P2P) funds transfer option here - only the third nation to offer the service after India and the United States.

It will allow OCBC customers to pay directly from their bank accounts to anyone registered to PayNow using the Google Pay app.

Customers can make real-time money transfers to contacts who have linked their bank accounts to their mobile numbers. The Google Pay P2P service has a daily transfer limit of $1,000.

Google Pay is a digital wallet platform and online payments system developed by search giant Google.

Mr Ching Wei Hong, OCBC's head of global wealth management and consumer banking, said the partnership could boost the trend of more consumers using PayNow.

Last year, around 70 million PayNow transactions worth $12.16 billion were made here.

"We have long rejected the 'digital wallet' approach that requires customers to top up an e-wallet and hold funds in one without earning interest," he said. "Instead, we 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.

"With Google Pay strengthening (the process) further, we expect to see the continued rise for the adoption rate of digital payments solutions among our customers in Singapore."

THE BUSINESS TIMES