Singapore's OCBC Bank has integrated its business mobile banking app with Apple's Siri for use in voice-controlled funds transfers and account balance enquiries.
Available early next week to 120,000 Singapore-registered users of OCBC Bank’s internet business banking portal, the app will permit payments of up to S$20,000 to recipients on the SME payee list. Validation will be done via fingerprint authentication and One Time Passwords (OTP) sent via SMS.
OCBC in October last year rolled out Siri-based cash transfers to retail customers using its Pay Anyone P2P mobile app.
Praveen Raina, SVP, group operations & technology, OCBC Bank, says e-payments to other OCBC Bank business accounts and account balance enquiries are two of the more commonly-used business banking services.
“The e-payments push is not just about peer-to-peer payments, but encompasses business-to-business payments too," he says. "We have already made online and mobile banking easy for SMEs in order to encourage them to go cashless. Voice recognition technology is integral to this, and it is easy to envision the use of Siri to make e-payments, or to check account balances, becoming second nature to business owners."