Photo: OCBC.
If you spend any time in China, you’ll know that it runs on digital payments with Weixin Pay (WeChat Pay) and Alipay being the two most dominant digital wallets. Collectively, they have over a billion users, making up 90% of all digital payments in the country.
Enabled by Visa Direct, customers of OCBC can now use their OCBC banking app to send near-instant peer-to-peer transfers to both Weixin Pay and Alipay using just the recipient’s China national identification name and China mobile number. This performs the transfer in seconds, rather than the current average of two to five days using other account-to-account or non-bank remittance services.
But OCBC says it isn’t stopping here adding that it will continue to work with Visa Direct so that by 2026 the app will have access to more than 50 digital wallets like GoPay and Ovo in Indonesia, and GCash, PayMaya and Coins in the Philippines. Recipients will be able to receive funds from OCBC Singapore bank accounts almost instantly and at competitive exchange rates.
Sunny Quek, OCBC’s Head of Global Consumer Financial Services at OCBC said:
Our wider goal is to become the go-to app for cross-border transactions in Greater China, ASEAN and even globally. Our customers can already scan and pay merchants globally using their OCBC app. With the roll out of our peer-to-peer pay-to-wallet service today, we are well on our way to achieving this goal.
Transferring funds
To make a funds transfer, customers must first add the digital wallet as a payee:
Photo: OCBC.
Step 1: Login to OCBC app and select ‘Pay & Transfer’
Step 2: Select ‘Overseas’ > ‘Add new payee’
Step 3: Select ‘Wallet’ for payee type > choose ‘AliPay’ or ‘Weixin (WeChat) Pay’ and input payee’s mobile number and name > ‘Add new payee’
Photo: OCBC.
Step 4: New payee added
To make a funds transfer to the wallet payee:
Photo: OCBC.
Step 1: Login to OCBC app and select ‘Pay & Transfer’
Step 2: Select payee and input amount to be transferred in Chinese yuan (the corresponding amount in Singapore dollars will be shown)
Step 3: Select OCBC Singapore bank account to pay from and purpose of transfer > ‘Slide to transfer’
Photo: OCBC.
Step 4: Transfer completed
For customers safety there is a daily and per transaction transfer limit of CNY50,000 and annual transaction limit of CNY300,000 for OCBC Singapore customers to the wallet recipients.
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