“Can a legacy ASEAN commercial bank become the embedded-finance rail for SMEs across Southeast Asia and Greater China?”
OCBC is a 90+ year old Southeast Asian commercial bank rather than a startup. Its strategic movement in embedded finance is developer- and API-driven: the CONNECT2OCBC API Store has 200+ partners across Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia, powers ~600k daily API calls and ~US$60M in transactions, and drives an SME Embedded Financing programme now extended into Indonesia via the 2025 Ant International partnership. The bank is positioning itself as the ASEAN/Greater China embedded-finance rail rather than a client of BaaS infrastructure.
OCBC discloses OCBC (in-house) as its banking provider, according to the Embedded Finance Index 2026.
OCBC does not disclose a bank charter of its own; its banking services are provided through OCBC (in-house).
OCBC processes payments through OCBC Payments (self-operated) and Stripe.
OCBC's cards are issued through OCBC (in-house) on the Visa, Mastercard and Discover networks.
OCBC's lending and capital products are provided by OCBC (in-house) and Ant International.
OCBC uses OCBC World Transfer (self-operated) for FX and cross-border payouts.
OCBC's embedded insurance is provided by Great Eastern.
OCBC's investing and wealth products are powered by Lion Global Investors and Bank of Singapore.
OCBC integrates with Xero.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 10 layers in OCBC's stack: Payments / PSP (OCBC Payments (self-operated) and Stripe); Banking / BaaS (OCBC (in-house)); Card issuing (OCBC (in-house)); Card network (Visa, Mastercard and Discover); Lending (OCBC (in-house) and Ant International); Insurance (Great Eastern); FX & payouts (OCBC World Transfer (self-operated)); Investing (Lion Global Investors and Bank of Singapore); Accounting (Xero); Spend / AP (OCBC Virtual Purchasing Card (self-operated)).
OCBC was founded by Tan Ean Kiam and Lee Kong Chian and is founded in 1932, headquartered in OCBC Centre, Singapore.
Get a read on where your own stack stands against OCBC and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.