Over 10,000 OCBC credit cards activated on Apple Pay

SINGAPORE - More than 10,000 OCBC credit cards have been activated on the Apple Pay e-wallet system in the first 24 hours since the feature was launched on Wednesday, said the local bank today.

OCBC is one of the five major banks, along with POSB, DBS, United Overseas Bank and Standard Chartered, that have signed up to Apple Pay.

Apple Pay, which was initially available to American Express cardholders only, allows customers to save their card details to a "digital wallet" stored on their iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch devices, for contactless payment.

Head of group lifestyle financing at OCBC, Mr Desmond Tan, said that the bank is expecting wallets such as Apple Pay to "lead the next evolution in the rapidly growing world of mobile payments".

He said: "With our market leadership position in contactless payments, we are in a good place to educate customers to add cards to their Apple devices for the convenience and ease of payments.

"Once customers have their credit cards stored, they just need to approve transactions with their fingerprint via their Apple devices' Touch ID. This process is easier and more secure than the conventional credit card as customers need to use their fingerprint ID at the authentication stage."

klim@sph.com.sg