DBS app offers mobile payments without accessing Internet banking

SINGAPORE — DBS Bank today (May 29) launched its mobile wallet application, DBS PayLah!, which allows DBS and POSB customers to use their mobile phones to pay for purchases, send and receive funds outside of the Internet banking environment.

Customers need to download the app, link their mobile numbers with existing DBS and POSB bank accounts, and top up the mobile wallet, which can take a maximum of S$999. During the top-up process, customers will need to have their mobile security tokens on hand for authentification.

Once done, the bank said customers can use the application for transactions such as sending money to their children for pocket money, or paying helpers’ salaries or taxi fares.

“While smartphone penetration is high in Singapore at 87 per cent, consumers have been slow to adopt mobile payment. Some of the key challenges for mobile payment include concerns around security, privacy and convenience,” the bank noted.

That said, DBS said mobile banking is on an “upward trajectory” with mobile transactions forming more than 30 per cent of the more than 1 million online transactions handled by DBS daily.

“We have received more than 5,000 sign-ups for DBS PayLah! within a week of making the app available. This signals consumers’ readiness to adopt mobile payment,” said Mr Louis Foo, Senior Vice-President of Consumer Banking Group eBusiness at DBS Bank Singapore.

The first version of the app was released on May 23, according to information published on Apple’s App Store.

The PayLah! app forms part of the mobile payment ecosystem being developed by the local bank, alongside its Banking app and MobilePay, a point-of-sale mobile app that will allow merchants to accept payments on the go. MobilePay is currently being piloted, the bank said. CHANNEL NEWSASIA