Maybank launches Maybank Mobile Money, first P2P Mobile Payment Service in Singapore

Developed by Tagit, the service reduces reliance on cash, enabling transfers to friends and family on the go

SINGAPORE, November 11, 2013: Maybank Singapore today announced the launch of Maybank Mobile Money, the first person-to-person (P2P) mobile payment service in Singapore that allows a person to send money to anyone using a mobile number that is developed by Tagit, an award-winning mobile solutions company.

Available from today, Maybank’s online banking customers can pay anyone, any time, by sending money directly to a Singapore-registered mobile number. The funds can then be collected via any Singapore bank account. Through this service that maps the increasingly tech-savvy lifestyles of Singaporeans, Maybank aims to further reduce the reliance on cash by customers.

Mr Lim Kuo Siong, Head, Information Technology and Virtual Banking, Maybank Singapore said: “Consumer behaviour is changing rapidly, aided by newer technologies. With the growth of Singapore’s smart phone and tablet penetration, we see a greater reliance on our trusted devices for daily tasks, including financial transactions.

Maybank Mobile Money is an innovative service that aims to simplify this even further by enabling our customers to manage their daily payment transactions to known recipients through a convenient, secure, and instant medium. Enabling payments directly to a mobile number will further reduce reliance on cash and cheque, and offer customers an alternative payment method that fits perfectly with our mobile lifestyles.”

Given the increased usage of social networks and video among smart phone users, and Singapore’s top five ranking for app usage, Maybank saw the opportunity to further innovate its digital services. This prompted the development of Maybank Mobile Money in partnership with mobile solutions company Tagit to leverage the inherent capabilities of smart phones to simplify a day-to-day service like money transfers to known recipients via their Singapore-registered mobile number.

Commenting on the announcement, Mr Sandeep Bagaria, CEO of Tagit, said: “Leading financial institutions like Maybank Singapore are constantly innovating their mobile banking services to provide users with the best mobile payment experience. Factors such as convenience, ease-of-use and security rank very highly in the minds of mobile banking customers. Maybank Mobile Money delivers a new and practical option for customer payment needs via our secure, platform.”

Maybank Mobile Money provides Singaporean customers with an alternative payment and collection method for transactions traditionally done via cash or cheque. The mobile app uses Tagit’s secure, robust and scalable mobility solution platform “Mobeix” to enable person-to-person social payments, such as the splitting of bills, and taxi fares, payment of fees to small businesses including private tutors and sports coaches, and payment for purchases conducted through social media.

The Maybank Mobile Money service is available as part of the Maybank Mobile Banking App, which was launched in 2012 on the Tagit Mobeix platform. The app, Maybank SG, is available in both the Apple App and Google Play stores.

MAYBANK TO BOOST REGIONAL CASH MANAGEMENT SYSTEM WITH WINDOWS PHONE 8

First ASEAN bank to launch a Windows Phone 8 corporate mobile banking application 

Maybank is the first ASEAN bank to adopt Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 platform for its corporate mobile banking application, Maybank2E-Regional Cash. The move opens up an additional channel as corporate clients can now access Maybank2E-Regional Cash on more mobile platforms.

Prior to this, the Maybank2E-Regional Cash was only available for mobile users on the iOS and Android platforms.

Maybank Deputy President & Head, Global Banking, Datuk Abdul Farid Alias said the addition of the Windows Phone 8 platform to Maybank2E-Regional Cash greatly increased the ability of Maybank’s regional clients to manage their cash flow on-the-go. Customer experience was also expected to be enhanced with the touch-optimized and tiles-based user interface of the new platform.

(L-R): Datuk Abdul Farid Alias (Deputy President & Head of Global Banking, Maybank), Mr John Wong (Managing Director & Group Head of Transaction Banking, Maybank), Mr Carlos Lacerda (Managing Director, Microsoft Malaysia)

“Given that an increasing importance of global business, Maybank2E-Regional Cash was expanded to provide greater accessibility for better convenience to our corporate clients,” he said.

Datuk Farid added that following the launch of Maybank2E-Regional Cash in Singapore last November, customer feedback has been positive with refinements made along the way to ensure maximum compatibility to our corporate clients’ needs.

“Maybank2E-Regional Cash offers corporate clients new capabilities, helps enhance their efficiency and reduces operational risks and costs,” he explained. “We want to ensure we remain relevant to our corporate clients using any mobile platforms and we aim to cover other dominant operating systems as well. This will soon include the Blackberry 10 for mobile platform.”

With the adoption of Windows Phone 8, Maybank is expected to onboard more than 10,000 corporate clients across the region with an estimated more than RM1.88 trillion in transaction value by 2015.

Meanwhile, Carlos Lacerda, Managing Director of Microsoft Malaysia lauded the collaboration with Maybank as well as the Bank’s efforts in adopting the latest technological advancements for the convenience of its corporate clients.

“We are proud to collaborate with Maybank as the preferred technology partner to bring enterprise banking services to their corporate customers on the latest, robust and most reliable mobile operating system today – Windows Phone 8,” he said. “Our Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 platforms continue to gather momentum since the respective launches just several months ago, and this is testament to the thought leadership of Maybank as one of the most progressive banks in the region.” On the Windows 8 front, Carlos announced that the new platform is off to a great start with more than 60 million Windows 8 licenses and 1.5 million Surface tablets sold worldwide.

Maybank2E-Regional Cash caters to the diverse needs of corporate clients and is available in six major languages, namely English, Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesia, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Japanese. Maybank2E-Regional Cash is already available in Singapore and Malaysia since 2012 and will be enabled in Philippines, Greater China and Indonesia by end 2013.

Financial Insights Honors 10 Outstanding Asia/Pacific Financial Services Firms For Effective Application Of Technology

In Their Day-To-Day Business Operations

The results were announced at the 2009 Financial Insights Innovation Awards (FIIA) held in Singapore

Singapore and Hong Kong – February 27, 2009 – Leading independent research and advisory firm Financial Insights, an IDC company, today announced that ANZ Bank; Alliance Bank Malaysia Berhad; HSBC (Bangladesh); HSBC Direct, Taiwan; Kotak Mahindra Bank; Maybank Berhad; Overseas-Chinese Banking Corporation; Standard Chartered Bank; Taishin Bank; and, The Siam Commercial Bank PCL are the ten winners of the 2009 Financial Insights Innovation Awards (FIIA). Held in conjunction with the Asian Financial Services (AFS) Congress which took placed on February 26 and 27 in Singapore, the FIIA 2009, in its fourth consecutive year, paid tribute to the most innovative use of information technology in day-to-day business operations by Asia/Pacific financial institutions.

§ This year, over 100 banks and insurers across the Asia/Pacific region submitted their entries for the awards. Submissions were evaluated by the FIIA assessment panel based on an initiative's responsiveness to market needs, effectiveness of implementation, market take-up and sustainability. The written entries of the FIIA winners also clearly articulated:
§ The initiative's ability to provide an organization with a strong competitive differentiator
§ The initiative's overall strategic intent
§ The initiative's ability to garner support and commitment from senior executives through to project management and business users
§ The role that technology played as an enabler of business operations
§ Compelling business benefits from the initiative

The winners showed that applying technology innovation in business strategies, product development, and IT investment, can bring about not only benefits such as operational efficiency and infrastructure optimization, but it is also key to increasing market share, securing fresh revenue streams, and building overall competitive differentiation in a crisis environment.

"The Financial Insights Innovation Awards showcased the achievements of financial institutions in applying innovation and best practices to realize business goals," notes Cyrus Daruwala, Managing Director of Financial Insights Asia/Pacific. "It also showed that the financial services industry in Asia/Pacific is at the forefront of leveraging technology as a true business enabler."

Here is a summary of the ten winners, arranged in alphabetical order, of the 2009 FIIA:

ANZ Bank for Innovation in Account Aggregation
ANZ Bank is recognized for ANZ MoneyManager, a free internet-based platform for the integration of an individual's financial data from different sources such as various bank accounts, credit cards, credit union accounts, online share portfolios, and rewards programs. This project is a credible Web 2.0 initiative that is seen to support the requirements of a new generation of customers who are more hands-on in managing their personal finances.
Partner Acknowledgement: Yodlee

Alliance Bank Malaysia Berhad for Innovation in Enterprise Transformation
Alliance Bank's strategy of applying technology excellence to create sustainable business value has led the bank to deploy an impressive enterprise-wide transformation ranging from enterprise architecture to risk management. This comprehensive initiative saw an effective collaboration between Alliance Bank and its technology partners in successfully positioning the bank's IT organization to support its strategic goals.
Partner Acknowledgement: IBM and Tivoli

HSBC (Bangladesh) for Product Innovation (Personal Installment Loan)
Awarded for effectively developing processes that support the growth of HSBC (Bangladesh)'s Personal Installment Loan product while keeping to quality in terms of loan disbursement volumes and high risk management standards. The processes helped the bank see improved market take-up of the product with lean staff resources.

HSBC Direct, Taiwan for Innovation in Online Insurance
HSBC Direct, Taiwan launched "Life Insurance Online" by integrating systems in HSBC Direct Taiwan, HSBC Life Limited, and HSBC Insurance Broker. The service offers a seamless online experience, with benefits ranging from real-time quotes on insurance policies, auto-documentation fill-up, direct payment of premiums via the HSBC Direct high-yield savings account, and integrated customer account management.

Kotak Mahindra Bank for Innovation in Enterprise Security Management
Kotak Mahindra Bank is proving itself to be an organization committed to inculcate security in all forms, with the goal to prepare itself for effective information security management. Through a holistic, continuous and integrated enterprise security strategy involving close engagement with its information security partner, the bank's security function has become remarkably operations-focused and results-oriented.
Partner Acknowledgement: Paladion Networks

Maybank Berhad for Innovation in Analytical CRM
Maybank brought to market an analytical CRM System that is enabling the bank to analyze, understand, predict and influence customer behavior throughout the customer life-cycle. The system put in place an effective data foundation for advanced data mining and event-based marketing capabilities, and developed best practices to integrate these new capabilities with the overall customer strategy of the bank.
Partner Acknowledgement: Teradata

Overseas-Chinese Banking Corporation for Innovation in Mobile Banking
OCBC Bank has successfully deployed a one-stop mobile bank with full service offerings to its customers. The bank has been able to develop an impressive mobile banking solution with a revenue-generating model driving significant growth in user-adoption and transaction volumes.
Partner Acknowledgement: Silverlake, IBM, eBworx and Orange Gum

Standard Chartered Bank for Innovation in Consumer Origination
Standard Chartered Bank is awarded for its "Global Lending Origination System", a scalable workflow solution for credit cards and personal loans which has been designed to replace multiple front-end country lending systems by consolidating consumer origination activity. Besides streamlined workflow and process automation, this initiative is also positioned to reduce operational risks for the bank. Subject to business requirements, there is also the possibility of extending the system to cover mortgage loans and deposit accounts.

Taishin Bank for Innovation in Credit Risk Management
Recognized for its credit/origination risk management system which incorporates a holistic and systematic approach to credit risk management across the key elements of people, processes and tools, Taishin Bank has demonstrated impressive results in improving the quality of its loans portfolio.
Partner Acknowledgement: Fair Isaac

The Siam Commercial Bank PCL for Innovation in Trade Finance
Awarded for Trade Superhighway, the first host-to-host Enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation in Thailand, which reiterates Siam Commercial Bank's leading position in international trade banking products. The initiative is especially recognized for clearly demonstrating client benefits such as reduced turn-around time, greater convenience and the avoidance of process redundancy.
Partner Acknowledgement: SAP Thailand and TNIS

In addition to these winners, Financial Insights Asia/Pacific would also like to give special mention to:

HSBC for its Business Direct initiative
HSBC Business Direct is aimed at providing a comprehensive, cost-effective cross-channel proposition for SME customers. Besides pioneering the provision of mobile banking services to SMEs in Hong Kong, the platform features a multi-currency integrated account, online FX and IPO application services, as well as the flexibility for mainland China customers to verify their identity with staff in Hong Kong via video-conferencing.

Security Bank Corporation for its Transaction Banking initiative
Security Bank Corporation Philippines is recognized for its fully customized, Internet-based electronic invoice presentment and payment system, termed "Billing/Invoice Presentment and Payment System (BIPPS)". BIPPS allows merchants to electronically post their Account Receivables (A/R) or open billings/invoices online, and quickly settle transactions with customers, thereby greatly improving settlement cycles and creating a more effective and efficient order-, payment-, and delivery process.

Tisco Bank (Thailand) for its Tisco Purse product
Tisco Purse, a card product, has proven that payments provides an opportunity to gain customers, especially for new institutions. The initiative is also recognized for facilitating customer transactions in a fast and efficient manner.

Union Bank of India for its Core Banking initiative
Union Bank of India is one of the first large Indian public banks to complete 100% deployment of its core banking solution. The core banking deployment was impressive with the bank migrating 1500 branches to its core banking solution within a six month time frame.

YES Bank Limited for its Direct Banking initiative
YES Bank receives special mention for its YES TOUCH Phone Banking Center. This is India’s first speech-recognition based contact center which integrates voice, email, chat and video, and offers customers a user-friendly self-service menu. Market take-up has been impressive with over 50% of all calls being closed through this self-service speech-enabled Phone Banking Center.
Partner Acknowledgement: CISCO and Nuance

To set up an interview with Cyrus Daruwala, contact Lay-Fang Tan at Tel: +65-6829-7731 or Email: lftan@idc.com.