The first mobile banking in Singapore
The first mobile banking in Singapore was introduced by OCBC Bank in 1958.
Introducing the bank on wheels
OCBC Bank converted a bus into a bank with banking services for deposits, withdrawals, remittances, travellers’ cheques. The “bank on wheels” was scheduled to suburban areas: Tampines, Balestier, Jurong, Bukit Panjang, Alexandar and Telok Blangah.
The bus was divided into 2 sections, banking lobby and the bank.
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News Article Original
Credits:
National Library Board
The Straits Times, 16 August 1958, Page 4
INTRODUCTION THE BANK ON WHEELS
Full Text
The convenience of having a bank just up the road or round the corner will be brought to out-of-town people in Singapore for the first time on Monday by the Oversea Chinese Banking Corporation’s new mobile service.
The service will go three times a week to six suburban centres.
The bank on wheels, equipped to transaction normal banking business, will travel to two centres in Tampenis and Balestier on Mondays, two in Jurong and Bukit Panjang on Wednesdays, and two at Alexandra Circus and Telok Blangah on Fridays.
It will be at one centre in the morning and the second in the afternoon. It will park at a petrol kiosk at each centre and be easy to find.
The mobile bank’s staff, which includes a woman, will receive deposits, pay out withdrawals, accept remittances and buy and sell traveller’s cheques.
Security Precautions
“All a customer has to do is to step into the coach and tell the clerk at the counter what he wants,” said the manager, Mr. Yeo Tiam Siew, yesterday. “Be it to start a savings account, make a remittance or pay in a cheque our staff will provide efficient and courteous service.”
The coach, complete with security precautions, is divided into two parts by the counter running across the width of the vehicle.
On one side of the counter is the bank and the other side the customer’s lobby.
In the lobby are red-cushioned settees for the customers and desks with pens.
“In bringing this service to the customer,” said Mr. Yeo,”we are saving him both time and the chesty of having to carry large sums of cash to and from the bank in the city many miles away.”
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