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.

Until cheques are fully phased out, and to drive digital literacy and adoption, OCBC Bank has rolled out a cheque encashment service across all its next-generation ATMs at 23 branches. Since February 2020, 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. This capability enables the next-generation ATMs to process 90 percent of all the cheques usually encashed at OCBC Bank branch teller counters.

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 Digital Ambassadors on mobile tablets in real time, so security is not compromised. 

According to ocbc.com