Singaporean lender OCBC Bank has joined Singtel’s VIA mobile payment alliance, an interoperable payment network in Asia Pacific region.
The move will enable the OCBC Bank customers make cashless payments in Thailand and Japan starting from first quarter of next year.
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The service will support QR payments in Singapore currency at competitive exchange rates across 1.7 million merchant partners on VIA’s network.
Furthermore, OCBC Bank and Singtel have also agreed to consider linking their rewards and merchant programmes.
The VIA alliance was launched in October last year to integrate payment processes with an interoperable network. The network includes Singtel’s Dash, AIS GLOBAL Pay and NETSTARS as members. Thailand’s KASIKORNBANK also joined the initiative recently.
OCBC Bank CEO Ching Wei Hong said: “Customers will have the ability to travel overseas and use OCBC Pay Anyone at over 1.7 million merchants’ acceptance points, reducing their need to carry cash.
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By GlobalData“As Singtel’s VIA network expands and scales, so will the number of places our customers will be able to use the OCBC Pay Anyone app to pay for purchases without incurring hefty FX exchange rates overseas.
“At the same time, customers will be able to top up their Dash wallets directly via OCBC Pay Anyone.”
Singtel’s International Group CEO Arthur Lang said: “Our partnership with OCBC comes from a shared vision to offer a seamless payment experience that caters to the needs of consumers and drive the growth momentum for cross-border mobile payments in Asia.
“We look forward to deepening our collaboration with OCBC as we build the financial services ecosystem together.”
Earlier this year, OCBC rolled out instant approval for credit and debit cards, personal loans, bank accounts and lines of credit.
The bank’s voice-based virtual assistant, the first in the Singapore market, was also appreciated by the customers.
