OCBC partners Republic Polytechnic on first PayNow initiative for educational institutions

REPUBLIC Polytechnic (RP) students and their parents can now pay course fees online using PayNow, under a new partnership between the school and OCBC Bank.

The polytechnic is the first educational institution in Singapore to adopt the electronic funds transfer service, OCBC said in a media statement on Tuesday.

RP will use OCBC's application programming interface (API) to enable its students and their parents to pay from bank accounts with any of the nine PayNow participating banks.

Users can simply scan a quick-response (QR) code on the student portal with their mobile phones to make the payments.

OCBC and RP will explore extending the use of PayNow to collect other fees in the future, such as fees for hostels, overseas trips and facility bookings.

Melvyn Low, head of global transaction banking at OCBC, said: "PayNow is becoming an increasingly popular choice for payments and collections among consumers and organisations for the ease and convenience it brings."

"The cost savings that arise from the reduction of cash and cheque handling is another attractive value proposition for forward-thinking organisations like Republic Polytechnic," Mr Low added.

Shares of OCBC were trading at S$11.49, down 10 cents, as at 10.29am on Tuesday.