SINGAPORE — Telco SingTel has partnered with Standard Chartered Bank to launch a new mobile commerce service which can access three types of services using a smartphone — money transfers and retail payments, loan applications, and mobile travel insurance.

Users — not just SingTel customers — can download cash into their mobile phones using the new app called Dash, which will be linked to their savings account, but the system will only work for users with Standard Chartered Bank accounts.

At launch, there are a few thousand retail acceptance points, including cab operators ComfortDelGro and SMRT, WingTai Retail shops, Food Republic and Watsons. This will grow to more than 20,000 by end of this year.

Money transfers between friends can also be made with a physical swipe using a patent-pending technology.

This is the latest in a slew of mobile commerce services that have been launched in Singapore in recent weeks and months, mostly by banks.

Just last week, DBS Bank launched a mobile wallet application called PayLah!, while OCBC Bank unleashed its OCBC Pay Anyone in May, and Maybank started its Mobile Money service late last year. All these services allow peer-to-peer instant transfers on smartphones.

As for mobile retail payments, the Infocomm Development Authority had in 2012 rolled out a nationwide contactless mobile payment network that taps on near field communications (NFC) technology, with a network of 30,000 acceptance points. But it requires NFC-enabled phones.

The Dash app, however, is compatible with Android and Apple devices.