TAKING banking to the customer's doorstep seems to be the new mantra among banks in Singapore as they actively woo clients in the fiercely competitive small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) market.

Local lenders are taking various banking documents - cheques, trade documents, account opening forms and even loan applications - to their clients, many of whom want to avoid the hassle of visiting a branch to get transactions done.

OCBC Bank is one lender that is "taking the bank" to its clients. Its BizExpress mobile van, to be launched today, will ply the Kaki Bukit and Ubi area.

Customers can deposit banking documents with staff travelling in the van - stationed at four strategic locations within the area for 45 minutes daily - for delivery to OCBC the same day.

"Companies are driven by entrepreneurs who spend most of their time running their business as they work to stay ahead in today's technological age, which leaves little time for banking matters," said Mr Neo Bock Cheng, OCBC's head of group transaction banking, about the new collection service.

This is one of the many ways in which banks are trying to innovate, as a wave of expanded services targeting SME clients sweeps through the banking industry.

DBS Group Holdings launched its QuickCollect mobile vans in January this year - akin to OCBC's document collection service - to make the rounds in the Kaki Bukit and Tuas areas.

Standard Chartered Bank (Stanchart) has doorstep banking, where it arranges for couriers to pick up cheques, product applications and trade documents from its clients. "This service has in part increased transactional volume," said Ms Kavita Bedi, Stanchart's general manager for SME banking.

Late last year, United Overseas Bank launched stand-alone commercial banking hubs with dedicated relationship managers at Boon Lay, Thomson, MacPherson and Jalan Sultan.

These hubs, located where there is a high density of SME customers, offer services such as the processing of trade bills.

As innovation becomes the hottest banking game in town, customers say they are the ones who will benefit at the end of the day from the convenience and accessibility.

"It will help me save time as I will not have to visit the bank to drop off our banking documents," said Samco Enterprise's finance and administration manager, Mr Lim Pang Heng.

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