I got an interesting press release today from OCBC about so-called โinstant provisioningโ of newly-approved credit or debit cards. What โinstant provisioningโ means is that you donโt need to wait for the physical plastic card to arrive in your mail anymore. As soon as your card application is approved, you can add it to your Apple Pay instantly via the OCBC Mobile Banking app.
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This service is currently only available for Visa cards, which means the much sought-after OCBC Titanium Rewards card wonโt be eligible, but I can only assume that itโs in the pipeline. Also, itโs only available on Apple Pay, which unfortunately means this Blackberry Keyone (Android, fyi) user will have to wait his turn.
Here are the steps, in case youโre interested:
Itโs definitely an exciting development, insofar as it cuts down the waiting time to start using your new card. And besides, itโs in the bankโs interest too that you get your new cards quickly so you can start spending. Faster delivery of physical cards has always been a goal for banks (and indeed, is something UOB has been trying to do with its guaranteed same day card delivery service) but a cheaper, more scalable way would be through solutions like mobile wallets.
Probably off topic, but what excites me about mobile wallets is the possibility of creating an add-in (plug in? overlay? whatchamacallit?) for Apple/Android/Samsung pay that automatically selects the right card for a particular merchant, depending on the MCC. I can see it now- you tap your phone at the merchant, and if itโs a restaurant, the mobile wallet select one card, if itโs a department store, it selects another, if itโs a taxi, it selects anotherโฆ I have no idea whether this is actually possible, but itโs a pretty nifty idea if it were.
Hopefully weโll see this expanded to other cards and other banks soon as well.
I thought UOB has done instant digital cards through their UOB Mighty app on Android for quite a while?
From 2016: https://www.uobgroup.com/assets/pdfs/new-release/UOB-world-first-instant-digital-card-issuance.pdf
Info page: https://www.uob.com.sg/personal/cards/credit/instant-digital-card.html
interesting. this is the first iโve heard of it. the only difference I can spot is that there seem to be some instances where UOB approval isnโt instant? (https://www.uob.com.sg/delightdigitalfaq/instant-digital-card-faqs-final.pdf)โ> If the application* for an Instant Digital UOB Credit Card is submitted between 8am to 9pm, the application status will be sent to you by SMS@.
Woohoo keyone!