SINGAPORE – OCBC is collaborating with Visa to make cross-border fund transfers accessible to more than 50 digital wallets by 2026, starting with Chinese digital wallets Weixin Pay (WeChat Pay) and Alipay.
The lender’s customers can now make peer-to-peer cross-border payments via its mobile banking app to the two Chinese digital wallets – which facilitate more than 90 per cent of the country’s digital payments – using the recipient’s China national identification name and China mobile number.
The process will be near instant and does not incur transfer fees. OCBC pointed out that current transfers take two to five days on average. Over the next two years, it aims to expand this payments service to more digital wallets, including Indonesia’s GoPay and Ovo, and Philippines’ GCash, PayMaya and Coins.
The move to expand its payments capabilities comes as money flows between China and Singapore continue to grow, said OCBC on Nov 7. There has been a 50 per cent surge in its Singapore customers’ remittances to China over the past year, the lender added.
It noted that monthly cross-border fund transfers from Singapore to Asean markets among its customers has increased by around 10 per cent over the past year.
Given the “increasing cross-border needs” of OCBC customers, and, in particular, the need to remit money home, there is “urgency” to expand OCBC’s payments capabilities to meet its customers’ demands, said OCBC head of global consumer financial services Sunny Quek.