Funds transfer has never been this convenient.

DBS and Visa recently launched Visa Personal Payments, a faster, secure and more convenient way to send money from your bank account to any Visa cardholder around the world using only the recipient’s name and their 16-digit Visa card number.

The new service is accessible to all DBS/POSB customers in Singapore and is available through the bank’s iBanking and mBanking channels. DBS/POSB customers can now send money to over 1 billion eligible Visa cards globally, including funds transfers in near real-time (within minutes) to over 200 million Visa Debit, Visa Credit and Visa Prepaid cards.

(Check out our slideshow below to see how the mobile transfer process goes.)

Asian Banking and Finance interviewed Anthony Seow, DBS' Executive Director, Head of Cards & Unsecured Loans and Ooi Huey Tyng, Visa's Country Manager for Singapore Brunei and here's what they have to say:

ABF: What spurred the launch of this new service?
Both domestic and cross border P2P payments have been offered for quite some time. However, recently there has been a lot of new activity and investments in this space due to the following reasons:

• Greater domestic and cross border migration. Because of this the world has become a smaller place. This has led to the need for more convenient, faster and safer systems for domestic and international personal money transfers.
• Advancement in digital technology has raised the bar for consumer expectations and now personal payments are meeting industry and consumer innovation levels.
• Regarding money transfers, Visa and DBS see an opportunity for offering new, innovative products that both meet both regulatory requirements and consumer needs.
• In Singapore specifically:
  • High penetration of cards and bank accounts
  • High % of foreign professionals, overseas students and migrant workers
  • High penetration of online banking and smartphones
  • With more geographically dispersed customers, higher technological expectations and regulatory requirements, there was a need to provide foundational platforms for P2P that are easy to use, fast, accessible and Anti-Money Laundering-compliant. These were the core reasons for developing the Visa Personal Payments platform.

ABF: What's new about it for DBS, Visa, and your customers?
DBS is the first bank in South East Asia to launch VPP to allow customers to do x-border real-time funds transfer to over 200 million Visa cards. DBS customers (sending side) and Visa cardholders (receiving side) can take advantage of the many benefits the VPP platform provides, including:

• Convenience: Visa Personal Payments (VPP) allows DBS bank customers to transfer funds to a local or foreign Visa cardholder without having to leave the comfort of their home.
• Speed: transfers can be sent in near real-time via cross-border payments.
• Low cost: other forms of personal payments transfers or remittances tend to have higher fees or charges, while VPP charges a flat fee based on the various recipient markets.
• Wide reach: The VPP platform enables transfers to over 1 Billion cards in over a 100 countries and near real-time transfers to over 200 million cards.

ABF: What do you hope to achieve with this initiative?
Visa has identified strong growth in the personal payments in Singapore. There has been 500% growth over the last three years with the top receiving countries being United Kingdom, Australia, Malaysia, India and Canada.

With a large and active online and mobile banking customer base looking for a solution for low value transfers, Visa and DBS Bank have an opportunity to strengthen our position as the leader in personal payments in Singapore and across the region.