OCBC has launched an AI assistant that enables business banking customers to complete account maintenance requests digitally within minutes, instead of days.
Velocity Smart Assist will initially support changing authorized users and approvers on its Velocity business banking platform, which is among the most common requests among the 20,000 account maintenance requests businesses make annually.
Authorized approvers manage account administration and approve selected banking transactions on behalf of their businesses.
Previously, these requests required manual processing involving document verification and multiple approval checks, resulting in turnaround times of around three to seven business days. With Velocity Smart Assist, businesses can now complete the process digitally in minutes.
In the first phase, Velocity Smart Assist enables customers to add or remove users and approvers, assign and amend user roles, identify the relevant approving parties and route requests digitally for review and approval.
From 2027, the AI assistant will be further enhanced to support additional account maintenance requests such as updating transaction authorization limits and changing business registered names and mailing addresses.
The bank intends to roll out the digital service to business banking customers across the bank’s core markets.
Digitalization push
According to OCBC, the launch is particularly relevant for small and medium-sized enterprises ( SMEs ), which often operate with lean teams. By reducing the time required to complete routine account maintenance requests, Velocity Smart Assist allows businesses to spend less time on administrative tasks and focus more on running and growing their operations.
Nearly 200,000 business banking customers in Singapore currently use Velocity to manage their banking activities.
The launch builds on the bank’s efforts to digitalize business banking services. Today, customers can already complete banking activities such as account opening, payments, collections and account monitoring digitally.
In Singapore, around 99% of SME account openings are completed digitally. In June 2026, OCBC became the first bank to enable Singaporeans and Singapore permanent residents to use Singpass to open business accounts with OCBC Malaysia, significantly shortening account opening times.
Carmen Chan, deputy head, global transaction banking, OCBC, says: “Velocity Smart Assist marks a significant step forward in applying AI to business banking. By enabling processes such as changes to authorized users and approvers to be completed digitally within minutes, we are simplifying administrative processes while maintaining the governance, security and controls that businesses require.”
