OCBC Bank’s customers will be able to make direct contributions to their Central Provident Fund (CPF) from within their banking app or internet banking platform.
Close to 150,000 OCBC’s customers have already leveraged the Singapore Financial Data Exchange (SGFinDex) to sync all their financial information from various financial institutions and government agencies to OCBC Financial OneView.
They can have a comprehensive view of all their financial information – across deposits, credits cards, loans, investments, securities-related holdings, assessable income and CPF account balances – before making a more informed and considered decision to top up their CPF accounts.
Customers can also reap tax benefits through tax relief of up to S$16,000 for cash top-ups made to theirs and their family members’ CPF accounts.
According to OCBC, its customers made 30 percent more top-up transactions and 25 percent more annual contributions to CPF last year compared to 2020.
OCBC had also integrated the IRAS payment application programming interface (API) on OCBC Digital in 2021.
This enabled taxpayers to view their assessable income information on the OCBC Financial OneView dashboard and then pay their tax directly on one digital platform, which eased a common pain-point among taxpayers of having to alternate between the IRAS platform and the bank’s platform to view their tax details and then make payments.
Sunny Quek, Head of Consumer Financial Services Singapore at OCBC said,
“Our rollout of this new service extends our ambition to make financial planning more accessible, simple and inclusive for Singaporeans. CPF is a major pillar of many Singaporeans’ retirement planning and contributing to their CPF accounts will enable them to receive payouts for retirement income.
More than 100,000 customers made contributions to their CPF accounts in 2021, and so extending this direct payment solution to them from our digital banking platforms will enhance their financial planning by making the process of voluntary CPF contributions more seamless.”