Singapore, 24 September 2020 – Google launches an all-in-one contactless payments experience that works with any bank or card Singaporeans choose. Starting today, customers of DBS PayLah!, OCBC Bank and Standard Chartered can link their bank accounts to Google Pay to pay anyone in Singapore through PayNow. They can also pay their favourite merchants through UEN or PayNow QR codes.
Google Pay Singapore app users on Android and iOS devices can send and receive money as easily as sending a chat message even if the recipient is not on Google Pay. This integration helps Singaporeans who have more than one bank account to streamline money transfers from different banks on one platform.
Patrick Teo, Director of Engineering, Google Pay, said, “We are excited to launch a new Google Pay experience that builds on Singapore’s robust payments infrastructure – PayNow and SGQR. Designed and built for Singaporeans, the new Google Pay enables a consolidated payment solution that is simple, secure and helpful. By working closely with our banking partners and merchants, we hope to deliver a more rewarding payment experience that works for every Singaporean, be it paying someone back for a meal, booking a movie ticket or using Google Pay to tap and pay for your MRT ride.”
Making Google Pay accessible to over 4.5 million banking customers
Singapore is the first country in Southeast Asia and second in the world to offer the new version of Google Pay, following India. The launch comes at a time when the number of PayNow users is at an all time high with four million people in Singapore using the service, and nearly threequarters of all organisations are on PayNow Corporate.
Melvyn Low, Head, Global Transaction Banking, OCBC Bank said, “SMEs and corporates are leveraging digital to change the way that they buy, sell and operate. They have to do so if they want to thrive in the post-Covid-19 new normal and e-payments are an important part of that. It is essential to doing business online, and even in retail stores, consumers are expecting contactless payments. We are therefore pleased to extend our partnership with Google Pay to enable P2M payments, as it opens up one more payments option for our SME customers. It is also hassle-free for them. If they are already registered for PayNow, they will immediately be able to receive Google Pay payments. Every bit helps, especially during this period. We are confident that this will benefit a wide range of businesses including those that have been hit hard by the pandemic.”
“Our collaboration with Google is part of DBS’ longer-term strategic roadmap to build out our payments and platforms ecosystem. Beginning with this PayLah! integration into Google Pay, both parties are exploring other areas of collaboration,” said Anthony Seow, Head of Payments and Platforms at DBS Bank. “This is in line with our commitment to offer the widest payment choices for our customers on how they want to pay, and is the same convenience we avail our merchant partners where they can adopt different payment rails to suit their needs when accepting payment. Our complete suite of digital payment solutions have enabled our customers and merchant partners to easily embrace the convenience of having digital payments in their lives and operations, especially in response to the outbreak.”
Dwaipayan Sadhu, Head of Retail Banking for Singapore at Standard Chartered Bank said: “We have seen fast adoption of our new digital capabilities from clients especially in 2020. We believe that we are at a tipping point on digital adoption and building more client centered solutions and services will provide a further boost to adoption. Building a strong digital ecosystem through industry collaboration will give clients a seamless digital payments experience, and we are excited to partner with Google Pay in offering yet another digital payment solution for our clients. With many of our clients going digital, this is a great addition to the Bank’s reservoir of digital offerings available for our clients to perform their banking transactions at their fingertips.”
More than just a payments app
Since April, Google Pay has enabled people to browse cuisines andorder takeout or delivery with the Order Food feature. This enabled Singaporeans to support food and beverage outlets at a time when dine-in business was brought to a halt because of COVID-19 operating restrictions. With restaurants resuming dine-in services, Google Pay added a Groups function where friends can “Split a bill,” which helps diners divide a bill, request for, and receive payments using PayNow. This allows users to manage group payments with multiple people in an easy-touse conversation format.
Moreover, users of Google Pay can now enjoy the convenience of booking and paying for movie tickets with Golden Village and Shaw from the app, providing an end-to-end digital experience for avid movie goers with no convenience fees for a limited time. Google Pay offers the widest selection of seats with almost 24,000 to choose from across 174 cinema screens islandwide.
Google Pay rewards friend referrals with as much as $5 for their first transaction. Users of Google Pay can also earn scratch cards that could win them cashbacks of up to $15 for qualifying transactions like sending money to friends or ordering food.
Designed for Singapore
When paying friends, users have the option to add animated wrappers especially designed for Singapore. The fun animations depict familiar everyday scenes like a meal at a hawker centre, Singaporeans’ all-time favourite bubble tea, a taxi ride with Marina Bay Sands in the background, or a traditional kaya toast and kopi set.
Download the new Google Pay Singapore app for Androidor iOS, and refer to the websitefor more information.
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