Familiarising yourself with the financial institutions of any given market is key towards the successful localisation of one’s business. Being one of the most dynamic financial hubs of Asia, Singapore is an ever-popular market of expanding one’s eCommerce business aspirations.

Before getting into the best banks in Singapore, here is a general overview of the payments landscape in the country.

Banking & Payments Landscape in Singapore

The banking infrastructure in Singapore is not only steadily optimised for an increasingly digitised global economy but also well-integrated into the local populace, as evidenced by the 97.9% financial inclusion rate and 88.9% internet penetration level of the country¹.

This is further backed up by the government's proactive policy towards digitalisation with initiatives such PayNow and e-wallet integration.

As such, the payments landscape in Singapore is largely digital, with card payments being the preferred payment method though current online payment trends predict that e-wallet payments will soon topple the primacy of card payments by 2024.

Top Banks in Singapore by Total Assets

1. DBS Group
2. OCBC
3. United Overseas Bank (UOB)
4. Standard Chartered Bank
5. Maybank Singapore
6. Citibank Singapore
7. HSBC Singapore
8. Bank of China
9. Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation
10. BNP Paribas

DBS Group & its Digital Payment Methods

DBS Bank is the largest bank in Singapore by total assets, with the Group owning 686 billion in SGD as of 2021. Founded in 1968 by the government of Singapore, the bank offers a wide range of financial products and services, including personal and business banking, investment banking, and wealth management.

DBS Group offers the following electronic payment methods for its users:

• Internet & Mobile banking
• Bank transfers
• Cards, credit & debit
• PayNow QR

Most third-party international payment gateways should be able to support bank redirected payment methods and card payments for eCommerce transactions. In light of localisation to the Singaporean market, some payment gateways, like Tazapay, have also opted to include the PayNow system to accept payments, making it familiar for the Singaporean buyer and helps to earn brand trust for international merchants.

OCBC & its Digital Payment Methods

Founded in 1932, OCBC is the second-largest bank in Singapore with over SGD 542 billion in total assets as of 2020. Like most major banks in this list, the financial products and services it provides are well-suited for a robust digital economy.

The payment methods it offers are as follows:

• Internet & Mobile banking
• Bank transfers
• Cards, credit & debit
• PayNow QR

UOB & its Digital Payment Methods

UOB is the third-largest bank in Singapore by assets, with over SGD 459 billion in total assets as of 2021. Its nigh-omnipresence in Singapore rivals that of DBS and COCBC, with its headquarters being the former tallest building in Southeast Asia.

As such, here are the following payment methods that it offers:

• Internet & Mobile banking
• Bank transfers
• Cards, credit & debit
• PayNow QR

Standard Chartered Bank

Standard Chartered Bank is a multinational bank with over SGD 153 billion in total assets as of 2021. Opening their first branch in 1859, they’re certainly a certified household name amongst Singaporeans that boasts reliability earned by its longevity.

The payment methods it offers are as follows:

• Internet & Mobile banking
• Bank transfers
• Cards, credit & debit
• PayNow QR

Maybank Singapore

Maybank is a leading Southeast Asian bank headquartered in Malaysia and possesses a strong presence in Singapore, with SGD 69 billion in total assets as of 2021. With an impressive network of over 2,600 branches in 18 countries including all 10 ASEAN member states, this bank is a worthwhile choice for regional prospects in Southeast Asia.

The payment methods it offers are as follows:

• Internet & Mobile banking
• Bank transfers
• Cards, credit & debit
• PayNow QR
• Maybank2u

Citibank Singapore

Citibank is a multinational bank with a major presence in Singapore, with over SGD 52 billion in total assets as of 2021. The bank offers a variety of financial products and services that make it a noteworthy choice.

The payment methods it offers are as follows:

• Internet & Mobile banking
• Bank transfers
• Cards, credit & debit
• PayNow QR

HSBC Singapore

HSBC is a multinational bank with approximately SGD 27 billion in total assets as of 2021. It has offices in over 64 countries across the globe and, much like Standard Chartered, share a common root in British colonial history.

The payment methods it offers are as follows:

• Internet & Mobile banking
• Bank transfers
• Cards, credit & debit
• PayNow QR

Bank of China

Bank of China is one of the largest banks in China, with a strong presence in Singapore, with around 26 billion RMB (approx. 5.2 billion SGD) in total assets as of 2021. The bank offers a slew of financial products and services, and is an indicator of China’s own growing presence in the greater Asian digital economy.

The payment methods it offers are as follows:

• Internet & Mobile banking
• Bank transfers
• Cards, credit & debit
• PayNow QR

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation is a leading Japanese bank that is relatively significant in Singapore, with over 512 billion JPY (approx 5.2 billion SGD) in total assets as of 2021. The bank provides a comprehensive range of wholesale banking solutions and has done so since 1963.

The payment methods it offers are as follows:

• Internet & Mobile banking
• Bank transfers
• Cards, credit & debit
• PayNow Corporate

BNP Paribas

BNP Paribas is a multinational bank with 2.6 billion Euros (approx. 3.7 billion SGD) in total assets as of 2021. It is the largest banking group in Europe and based in France.

The payment methods it offers are as follows:

• Internet & Mobile banking
• Bank transfers
• Cards, credit & debit
• PayNow Corporate

With the knowledge you have about what banks Singaporeans prefer to use, you're better prepared to expand your online business into the island nation. Better yet, localise your presence into Singapore better with a payment gateway that is integrated with these major banks in Singapore to make your business stand out from other competitors.

Tazapay is not only headquartered and fully operational in Singapore, but you'll also get to enjoy a 0% fee for all international transactions if your buyers pay using the local bank transfer payment option. Earn more, and save more with Tazapay today! Contact us now: Contact Us

Sources

1. Digital 2021: The evolution of the digital landscape in Singapore - We Are Social Singapore

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Thailand is entering the dawn of an era of digital payments after being a cash-reliant economy for so long. Over the past six years, the country has worked hard to roll out financial technology services and the penetration of said services into their populace¹. This is evident with the 2022 statistics regarding the percentage of internet users in Thailand which reports that 77.8% of the country’s population of 70.01 million are avid users of the internet and presumably digitally literate². One of the key contributors in Thailand’s adoption of digitalisation appears to be PromptPay, the interbank real-time payment system developed as part of their National e-Payment Master Plan¹.

What Is PromptPay?

PromptPay is an interbank real-time near-instant payment system that enables users to easily receive and transfer funds using either their Citizen ID or mobile phone number, making it similar to India’s UPI and Singapore’s PayNow in that respect⁶. This payment system is developed with the cooperation of the major Thai banks and Vocalink, a Mastercard company, to help the government’s transformation of their cash-dependent economy into a digital economy⁵.

User Trends in PromptPay

Real-time payments in Thailand are expected to help generate 2.08% of the country’s GDP by 2026, states a report by ACI Worldwide which also states that in 2021, 24.7% of total payments volume were transacted through its real-time payments network, putting just shy of paper-based payments in second place⁴. The report also credits the adoption of PromptPay for this growth, which itself was pushed by the large presence of mobile phones in the country⁴. The forecast made by the report holds even more water when looking at the volume of PromptPay transactions between 2017 and 2021, exploding from a meagre 88.07 million transactions to 10.067 billion transactions⁷.

However, current forecasted trends may not necessarily reflect the actual sentiment of the Thai people as while Thailand saw widespread use of digital payment apps especially during the pandemic, a survey conducted by the Bank of Thailand found that the majority of people that adopted digital payments have returned to using cash, citing convenience and lack of added fees as reasons for doing so⁸. In fact, the survey also found that over 50% of the respondents from all age groups prefer using cash in their day-to-day transactions, with only 27% of the 6020 respondents across seven regions opting to continue using digital payment apps⁹.

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Benefits and Drawbacks of Using PromptPay for Online Payment Gateways

As alluded to by the above segment, PromptPay certainly is not the perfect digital payment solution. Nonetheless, it is still experiencing growth, so here are its benefits and drawbacks:

Benefits

Smooth Checkout Experience: PromptPay being an interbank payment system ensures that users can make purchases regardless of what bank they use in Thailand.

Real-time Payment: Transactions are processed in real-time and near-instantaneously, thereby making most transactions a speedy affair that takes less than a minute.

Secure and Simple: So long as a user has a mobile phone and an internet connection, PromptPay users can conduct transactions whenever and wherever. It is also secure as each account can only be linked to one Citizen ID.

Drawbacks

Low Merchant Adoption in Thailand: Thailand being a predominantly cash-based society means that most vendors, especially those deemed ‘grassroots’ vendors, would largely stick to cash over digital, leading to higher chances of PromptPay users needing to have cash on hand as opposed to paying with the payment system. For international online businesses who offer PromptPay, this means you'll have a chance of standing out from other local businesses in front of digitally savvy buyers.

Fixed Price During Checkout: The cash dominance of Thailand also means that most consumers prefer the savings that come with the ability to haggle, as opposed to the fixed nature of digital payments in conjunction with the fees that come with it. However, social commerce through social media such as LINE has helped implement the haggling element into the digital payment sphere, making products such as payment links useful in generating checkout links with haggled prices¹º.

How PromptPay Works in an International Payment Gateway

Currently, PromptPay remains a local payment system though the Thai government has already made moves to establish arrangements with its counterparts in Malaysia and Singapore. This means that any payment made with PromptPay across borders must be done through a third-party payment provider to act as the international payment gateway.

How such a payment would work is that the funds from the user would be transferred into the payment provider’s Thai bank account via PromptPay.

This can be done through either scanning the QR code or inputting the recipient’s Citizen ID or phone number, leading to the checkout amount being paid by the user within the PromptPay app.

The Promptpay app should display a message once the funds transfer is successful.

Then, these funds are moved into one of many international accounts owned by the payment provider before being disbursed to the foreign seller’s bank account. No two third party payment providers are the same so keep an eye out for one that offers an extensive list of localised markets to choose from.

What are the Fees Required in Using PromptPay?

At the time of writing, all transactions made with PromptPay locally under 5,000 baht are free. Transactions between 5,001 and 30,000 baht incur a 2 baht fee, transactions between 30,001 and 100,000 baht incur a 5 baht fee, and transactions between 100,001 and 200,000 baht incur a 10 baht fee.

As for transactions that are cross-borders made with a third-party payment provider, all the usual fees and costs that come with using such services apply such as FX costs, platform fees, and setup fees. Be sure to look for a proper and secure payment provider when choosing one for your own business needs.

Now that you are more knowledgeable about PromptPay, your efforts in penetrating the Thai market should go much smoother. If you’re still looking for a solution to improve your chances, why not give Tazapay a try? With payment solutions tailored for everyone from eCommerce platforms to exporters and importers, Tazapay will have a solution that suits your needs.

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Sources

1. The Dawn of Thailand’s e-Payment Era - Thailand NOW
2. Digital 2022: Thailand — DataReportal – Global Digital Insights
3. Thailand | The Global Payments Report
4. ACI Worldwide — GLOBAL PAYMENT TRENDS — Charting the growth of 'immediate payments'
5. Transforming Thailand to a digital economy | Mastercard
6. Bangkok Bank PromptPay
7. Thailand: PromptPay transactions volume 2021 | Statista
8. Thailand Rejects Digital Payments in Favour of Cash (cashmatters.org)
9. Cash still king, people reject app payments - Thai Examiner
10. Social commerce in Thailand - statistics & facts | Statista

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Online cross-border transactions happen on the daily through a whole slew of digital payment gateways. They happen so frequently and so seamlessly that the cross-border payments industry is expected to reach $156 trillion USD in 2022¹.

Digital payments work so frequently and seamlessly such that it may only look like a few clicks between payment providers to an average Joe. But what belies these clicks are infrastructures held in place via API calls, always-on servers, and other functions that serve both B2B and B2C markets globally.

With this in mind, the discerning merchant based in India may be curious to know how their payments work when they export their products or services on the international market. After all, India’s export market is sized at USD 284 billion for goods and USD 205 billion for services in the year of 2020².

A market of interest to these Indian exporters would be the United States of America, who is India’s largest destination country valued at USD 64.2 billion in 2020². Exporters in India would stand to gain from targeting this country’s consumers by not only offering the product or service American buyers would need, but to also ensure that the checkout process is localised to their sticky buying habits.

Online Checkout: The American Buyer Makes their Payment

For platforms that would like to optimise their checkout to the US market, it should ideally have multiple payment methods such as card payments, digital wallets, local bank transfers, etc.

In the USA, cards have a very strong presence both online and offline, where credit cards are the most common payment method in the US consisting of 58% of the 2020 eCommerce payments market according to JPMorgan’s study3.

Some of the most used card networks are Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover. The ubiquity of credit cards and debit cards has made them an enabler of digital wallets in the US where consumers can link their payments and top up their digital wallets using card networks. Thus, making it the second most popular payment method there.

In addition, other payment methods include bank redirect apps and local bank transfers using banks such as:

• JPMorgan Chase
• Bank of America
• Citibank group
• Wells Fargo
• Goldman Sachs
• Morgan Stanley, etc.

Once the payment is made by the buyer, the payment gateway starts processing the payment. The process differs for different payment methods used to pay. If the buyer has chosen to pay by card or wire transfer, the funds would not be held at the local bank account but sent directly using the payment method’s payment rails.

On the other hand, if the buyer pays by local bank transfer, it will first be held by the payment provider’s local bank account before transferring the funds to the seller’s bank account in India.

Cross-Border Payment: Sending the Money from USA to India

Sending payments cross-border can be simply boiled down to sending money from an origin country’s account to a destination country’s account. In this instance, the origin country would be the United States and the destination country is India.

For bank transfers, cross-border payments are sent via SWIFT wire transfers. Outside of the bank transfer payment method however, card networks would have their own payment rails to send funds into. But platform fees may still vary from one payment method to another.

Generally speaking:

• Bank Surcharges affect payments linked to the banks themselves. The surcharge amount varies depending on the bank.
• Card Surcharges can go as high as 4%, and depends on the card’s network fees.
• Wire Transfer Costs are expensive for international transactions, but tends to be cheaper for local transactions.
• FX Conversion Costs may also be levied on top of payment method costs.

While it would be beneficial to keep these factors in mind, some payment providers like Tazapay may have cheaper platform fees due to partnering with local payment providers to keep these costs low.

Hedging Against FX Fluctuations by Holding USD in a Multicurrency Account

For merchants that deal with suppliers internationally, it may make sense to opt to receive payments in USD in order to hedge against fluctuations in their local currency.

This can be achieved by opening a multicurrency account in the merchant’s own country so that they can both hold USD, their local currency, and any other currencies that they may need when dealing with other businesses.

Payout or Disbursement: Releasing the Payment to the Indian Seller

The last step in international payments happens when the merchant based in India would receive their payment from the payment provider.

Merchants who built their own brand.com with integrations to the payment platform, have built their storefronts with tools like Shopify or WooCommerce, or use the payment platform directly can expect to receive their payouts by the next business day or a week depending on the buyer’s chosen payment method and whenever they request for the payout.

On the flipside, merchants who sell via an online marketplace may have a fixed time period to receive their payout as it is more economical for the online platform to club their payouts to a single day of the month. When this happens would be mentioned on the eCommerce marketplace’s Terms & Conditions page when the merchant first signs up with the platform to sell. These funds then get compiled and sent to the Indian merchant’s local bank account.

Some major Indian banks to look out for include:

• HDFC Bank
• State Bank of India
• ICICI Bank
• Yes Bank
• Bank of Baroda
• Bank of India etc.

Legislation and Compliance: Proof of Export with an FIRC/FIRA

After receiving any form of international payments, the Indian merchant needs to obtain an FIRC or FIRA to prove that there was foreign inward remittance into an Indian bank account. Obtaining an FIRC/FIRA is part of the legislative requirements set in place by the RBI in order to prevent money laundering or fraud from taking place within the country.

Obtaining an FIRC or FIRA would require the Indian exporter to request for the document from an AD1 (Authorised Dealer Category 1) bank that has processed their cross-border payment. RBI has provided a list of such banks on their website⁴.

With this knowledge on how cross-border payments work from the United States to India, you now know the importance of having an online checkout that not only caters to the American consumer in terms of ease of use, but also allows for a seamless transfer of money from one country to another.

Keeping these steps and features in mind will ensure that you are able to select a payment provider that helps you to decrease cart abandonment and passes time and cost savings to you. If you are looking for a payment provider, why not give Tazapay a try? With coverage of over 173+ countries and local payment options in over 70 major markets, satisfy your customers anywhere in the world by providing them a seamless checkout experience.

Sources:

1. Three trends redefining the global cross-border payments market
2. India (IND) Exports, Imports, and Trade Partners | OEC - The Observatory of Economic Complexity
3. 2020 E-commerce Payments Trends Report: United States Country Insights
4. RBI: Authorized Dealers in Foreign Exchange