Standard Chartered Bank and FairPrice Group’s digital bank, Trust Bank launched with savings accounts and credit card offerings for retail customers. Trust can offer a full suite of banking products after it acquired a full bank licence. Between Standard Chartered, FairPrice Group, and NTUC Enterprise, SGD 400 million (aprox. USD 285 million) has been invested into the bank.
On deposits up to SGD 50,000 (aprox USD 35,600) customers will get 1% per annum and 0.05% for deposits above SGD 50,000. NTUC Union members will get bonus interest of 0.4% on deposits up to SGD 50,000 for making 5 eligible Visa purchases on their Trust card. Non-union members will only enjoy a bonus interest of 0.2% on the same purchases.
There will be no minimum balance amount for the savings account. According to the chief executive of Trust, the 1% interest rate is a sustainable one for the bank, as it has some advantages in operating as a digital bank. The credit card offered by Trust has no annual fee, foreign transaction fee, cash advance fee or card replacement fee. The card also allows customers to earn NTUC Linkpoints rebates at an accelerated rate, The Business Times reports.
Trust is also offering a family personal accident insurance by Income just for the launch, at a premium of SGD 0.50 (USD 0.36) per month. Customers can get this by signing up for a Trust credit card, and is available for no premium for the first 2 months. According to the company, the signup process for an account or credit card doesn’t take long with a SingPass account and Trust’s credit card is reportedly the first numberless one in Singapore. The card can function both as a debit and credit card.
Trust targets the entire NTUC ecosystem, from the FairPrice supermarkets to insurance at NTUC Income. According to Trust’s CEO, 1 in 3 Singaporeans has interacted with FairPrice or the larger NTUC ecosystem including the NTUC LinkPoints reward system.
Indonesia-based ecommerce company Bukalapak partnered with Standard Chartered to launch BukaTabungan, a digital banking service targeting Bukalapak’s users and Indonesia’s underbanked segment, as stated by The Business Times.
The digital banking service has received approval from Indonesia’s financial services authority Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK). Standard Chartered, meanwhile, is licensed and supervised by the OJK.
BukaTabungan will reportedly be a service within Bukalapak’s all-commerce platform. It will leverage the Standard Chartered’s nexus, a Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) solution, both parties said in a joint press statement, according to The Business Times. The digital banking service looks to serve the Bukalapak’s 110 million users and 20 million business owners. Users will be able to open their accounts in 5 minutes and benefit from no administrative fees for savings, up to 20 free transfers and cash withdrawals, as well as higher interest rates on savings.
Through the partnership, Bukalapak and Standard Chartered are also looking to support micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). At present, the ecommerce group serves around 6.8 million online merchants through its marketplace, The Business Times reports. Bukalapak also serves 14.2 million businesses, including small family-owned kiosks known as ‘warungs’ and phone credit stores through its online-to-offline platform, Mitra Bukalapak.
In March 2022, Mahesh Narayan, Global Product Lead for Mobile Money & Ecommerce at Standard Chartered Bank, showed us the difficulties faced by merchants with traditional collections and how can digitalisation help. Find out more details, here.
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