OCBC, DBS PayLah! to integrate with Google Pay by early 2020

DBS and OCBC Bank are tying up with tech giant Google, with both Singapore banks due to launch Google Pay services with PayLah! and PayNow by early 2020. 

OCBC Bank customers will be the first in Singapore to be able to link their bank accounts on Google Pay to make peer-to-peer funds transfers via PayNow, in addition to enabling credit cards on the app to make online and in-store payments. The service, now in beta-testing phase, will be available in open-beta in January 2020.

Users of Google Pay can also earn rewards that will go directly into the user's bank account, said Caesar Sengupta, Google's vice-president of payments and leading the next billion users initiative, in a press statement. 

OCBC Bank's chief operating officer Ching Wei Hong said: "In today's digital world, building ecosystems of partnerships and going beyond traditional banking products is critical.

"This is a bold move which I believe will have great impact and bring significant scale to PayNow by expanding payment journeys for consumers."

DBS's collaboration with Google includes the integration of PayLah!'s peer-to-peer and peer-to-merchant transaction services. 

The integration will allow DBS PayLah! customers to send and receive funds, and pay some 80,000 merchants in Singapore via Google Pay using a single-click sign-up.

"This collaboration demonstrates our commitment towards building wholly seamless, intuitive services for our customers," said DBS Bank chief strategy officer Han Kwee Juan in a press statement. 

In September 2019, DBS said it would more than double DBS PayLah!'s existing user base of 1.6 million to 3.5 million by 2023.

"We are delighted to partner with DBS in our mission to make mobile payments simple, helpful and secure," said Google's Mr Sengupta. 

"Through this collaboration, we hope to make that a day-to-day reality for Singaporeans."

Google Pay in Singapore will be enabled across both iOS and Android devices. 

Singapore is the second country to launch the enhanced version of Google Pay after it was introduced in India in 2017.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong urged Singaporeans to go bigger on e-payments in a National Day Rally speech in 2017, the same year PayNow was launched in the Republic. 

There are more than three million registered individual PayNow users and 129,000 business PayNow users. Since its launch in June 2017, more than S$12 billion have been transferred.