OCBC launches standalone mobile payment app

OCBC has launched its first standalone mobile payment app which makes QR code cashless payments available at close to 2,500 Nets terminals.

The OCBC Pay Anyone app brings together all OCBC Pay Anyone services and enhancements - including peer-to-peer e-payments, QR code payments and access to OCBC Pay Anyone integrated with Apple iPhone's Siri and iMessage - into a fast and easy one-stop access to e-payments. With the app, customers can simply scan QR codes at participating merchants' Nets terminals to pay for their purchases directly from their OCBC accounts. Authentication of the transaction will be done through fingerprint recognition.

 The OCBC Pay Anyone app is available for download on the Apple and Google Play mobile app stores.

From tomorrow, OCBC Bank customers can pay for purchases at merchants including Robinsons, Zara, Marks & Spencer, Gap, Paradise Classic restaurants, Caltex stations and Gardens by the Bay.

By year-end, customers will be able to make QR code payments at more than 50,000 Nets terminals islandwide, OCBC said.

 "It's a war on cash," said Mr Pranav Seth, OCBC Bank's Head of e-Business, Business Transformation and Fintech and Innovation Group. "OCBC Pay Anyone payment volumes have increased 10 times since May last year. Now, we want to bring the same convenience to paying for your regular shopping and meals using QR codes."

DBS also gave an update on its move to encourage cashless payments. It said yesterday it has reached out to nearly 3,000 cash- based merchants here less than a month after the launch of its cashless payment drive called Snap.

The Smart Nation Ambassador Programme or Snap was introduced on May 5, and is aimed at encouraging small, cash-based merchants like hawker stalls, wet market vendors and neighbourhood stores to adopt DBS PayLah! QR codes as a payment method.

Some 400 merchants are onboard and more are in the process of getting started, mainly in mature estates such as Toa Payoh, Ang Mo Kio, Clementi and Bedok.

So far, 3,000 QR code transactions have been processed via DBS PayLah! since the launch of its QR code function, it added.

Mr Jeremy Soo, head of DBS' Consumer Banking Group (Singapore), said: "The higher ubiquity in cashless payment acceptance will in turn encourage consumers in making the transition to cashless payments."

In conjunction with the Snap initiative, the bank will also partner ComfortDelGro Taxi to implement QR code payments in its fleet of 16,300 taxis by the third quarter of this year.

Altogether, the bank aims to have more than 60,000 QR code payment acceptance points available to customers by the end of the year.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on May 31, 2017, with the headline OCBC launches standalone mobile payment app. Subscribe