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PayNow can now be used to transfer money to Thailand

This article is more than 12 months old

Transferring money between Singapore and Thailand has become faster and easier, thanks to a ground-breaking partnership between the PayNow system here and Thailand's similar PromptPay, from yesterday.

The initiative marks the first time the local peer-to-peer (P2P) payment systems of two countries anywhere in the world have been linked.

Three of Singapore's 12 PayNow banks are participating in the scheme - DBS Bank, OCBC Bank and UOB - together with Thailand's Bangkok, Kasikorn, Krung Thai and Siam Commercial banks, noted the Association of Banks in Singapore.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore and Bank of Thailand said they will progressively add more participating banks and extend the transfer limits to facilitate business transactions.

P2P transactions - also known as person-to-person payments - are money transfers that can be done on mobile devices through a linked bank account or credit card.

Customers of the participating banks will be able to transfer funds of up to $1,000 or 25,000 Thai baht daily.

There will be no need to give the recipient's full name and bank account details, as is required by other remittance solutions.

The experience will be similar to how domestic PayNow and PromptPay transfers are made, in which senders can use their mobile banking or payment applications to initiate fund transfers instantly and securely, at any time of the day.

The funds will flow seamlessly between customers' accounts with the cross-border transfers completed in less than five minutes.

Ms Yuen Su Wen, 34, a communications executive at a local company, used the OCBC Pay Anyone app to make a transfer to a friend in Thailand yesterday.

"It was just like making a local PayNow transaction. The only difference was having to indicate the amount of Thai baht I wanted my friend to receive," she said

This article first appeared in The Straits Times.

BUSINESS & FINANCE