Digital solution provides greater certainty and transparency in cross-border payments
United Overseas Bank (UOB) has transformed the digital banking experience for its corporate clients with the launch of UOB Infinity, enabling them to manage their banking needs in a simpler, smarter and more personalised manner. The Bank will roll out UOB Infinity across the region, beginning with Singapore first.
With rising demand for personalised digital experiences1, UOB Infinity offers a customisable dashboard that enables clients to prioritise and to display information that is most important to them. The customisable dashboard presents financial information visually, thereby making it easy for clients to see state of their company’s finances at a glance and in real-time.
Through UOB Infinity, clients can also manage a range of domestic and cross-border banking activities – from checking their UOB accounts across various markets to making local and international payments – conveniently and without the need to log into multiple platforms. Real-time payment receipt confirmation at the beneficiary bank also helps address the challenges that many corporate treasurers face by improving transparency and certainty of payment.
UOB Infinity’s biometric login via a soft token on the mobile app also enables for faster access and simplified transaction authorisation while also ensuring security.
Ms So Lay Hua, Head of Group Transaction Banking, Group Wholesale Banking, UOB, said, “The launch of UOB Infinity is another example of our commitment to developing digital solutions that enable our clients to bank more easily and conveniently. In designing UOB Infinity, we have created an experience that is intuitive for our clients and enables them to access the financial intelligence they need quickly and easily. As part of our design approach, we engaged our clients at every step to understand what was most important to them and tapped industry best practices to create a solution that meets both the current and future needs of our clients.
“We believe that through UOB Infinity’s simple and user-friendly interface, breadth of functionalities and personalised experience, we will be able to help more of our clients increase their use of digital banking services for better productivity and business performance. Not only is this essential to supporting businesses in their digital transformation efforts, it also helps in increasing their resilience and ability to make timely, data driven decisions to cope with unexpected events such as the COVID-19 pandemic.”
A set of customers piloted UOB Infinity and found its ease of use and rich features drove improved experience, productivity and business performance. TeleRadio Engineering Private Limited was one of the clients that has already benefitted from the solution’s ease of use and wide range of features.
Ms Vivien Tan, Chief Executive Officer at TeleRadio Engineering Private Limited, said, “I found the dashboard very useful as it provides me with an overview of my balances and transaction statuses across different accounts. The ability to customise the dashboard also makes it more convenient for me as I can opt to have an overview of my outstanding tasks and thereby act on them promptly.”
Greater certainty and transparency when making cross-border payments
UOB Infinity also addresses a common concern among corporate clients – the lack of real-time tracking for cross-border payments2. The digital solution provides businesses with real-time notification through SMS or email when their payment has been successfully credited into the beneficiary’s account, saving them the hassle of manually checking on the status of the transaction. On average, about 20 per cent of the monthly calls received by UOB from its corporate clients relate to queries on the status of their cross-border payments.
Clients are also informed of the charges for the cross-border transaction, including those from the intermediary bank. This provides businesses with greater transparency in the costs incurred for the transaction and helps to prevent instances where there is a discrepancy in the final amount received by the beneficiary due to the charges involved.
“Businesses already face many uncertainties when seizing cross-border opportunities, including the need to navigate a foreign business landscape and to build up their relationship with local suppliers. To support them in their entrepreneurial efforts, we wanted to make it easier for businesses to know when exactly their payment has been credited, eliminating the need to check for such payments manually,” Ms So said.
Mobile app featuring one of the most comprehensive range of payment functionalities
As the use of electronic payments for business transactions increase, the UOB Infinity app enables corporate clients to manage all their payments needs efficiently even when on the go. Clients are able to make a wide range of payments – from local bill payments to making domestic and cross-border fund transfers through services such as PayNow, FAST and telegraphic transfers.
To further drive adoption of contactless collections, especially in the current COVID-19 pandemic, clients are also able to generate a QR code through UOB Infinity to request for payment via PayNow Corporate from their buyers. UOB has been supporting its customers in their drive towards adopting digital payments and collections. In the first half of 2020, UOB saw the number of PayNow Corporate transactions increasing by nearly nine times as compared with the same period a year ago.
The UOB Infinity mobile app can be downloaded from Google Play and the Apple App store. Clients will also be able to set up their biometrics login to access the mobile app more conveniently. Singapore users of UOB’s existing business internet banking platform, UOB BIBPlus, can log into and start using UOB Infinity with the same credentials.
For more information about UOB Infinity, please visit: www.uob.com.sg/infinity.
1 According to a report from Boston Consulting Group. The report, titled What do corporate banking customers really want?, can be accessed at: https://www.bcg.com/ru-ru/publications/2018/what-do-corporate-banking-customers-really-want.
2 According to a SWIFT and EuroFinance survey, 64 per cent of treasurers said they want real-time payments tracking and place this at the top of their list of desired enhancements. https://www.swift.com/sites/default/files/documents/swift_corporates_surveypaper_eurofinance-final.pdf
