OCBC Bank has rolled out a cheque encashment service across all its next-generation ATMs at 23 branches, making it the first bank to offer such services in Southeast Asia.
Recognizing that there are still segments of customers who require services like cheque encashments, OCBC has enabled its next-generation ATMs to process 90 percent of all the cheques usually encashed at its branch teller counters.
«It takes up a significant amount of time for a customer and counter teller staff just to fulfill a single such transaction. We have addressed this by enabling transactions such as cheque encashment to be performed seamlessly on our next-generation ATMs instead,» said Sunny Quek, OCBC Bank’s Singapore head of consumer financial services, in a media statement on Thursday.
Cutting Transaction Time
Since February this year, customers have been able to encash cheques – for up to a maximum of $30,000 in a single cheque – by depositing them into the ATM to instantly get cash. As a result, the average cheque encashment transaction time has been reduced to under three minutes at the ATM, as customers can save about 60 percent of their time compared to waiting to be served at a branch.
All the necessary security checks and verifications are performed by the lender's «digital ambassadors,» or staff located at its branch on mobile tablets in real-time, to ensure security. The next-generation ATMs have already processed cheque encashments totaling close to S$17 million, the bank said.
Cheques Still Popular
Even as Singapore pushes to become cheque free by 2025, cash cheques continue to be used by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), typically to pay staff salaries, get cash for daily business operations, or pay vendors for services rendered.
While cheque usage by OCBC Bank’s retail banking customers has fallen 40 percent since 2018, one in six cash transactions performed by OCBC Bank tellers over the counter are still cash cheque encashment, with 95 percent of these cheques issued by SMEs.
