ICBC Singapore launches USD/SGD dual currency card

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) Singapore has launched a US dollar and Singapore dollar dual currency credit card as it seeks to expand its retail banking presence here.

The ICBC Visa USD/SGD dual currency credit card will have zero administrative fees for all US dollar transactions, the bank said in a press release on Monday. This would ease “additional costs that customers tend to bear, which can be as high as 2.5 per cent”, ICBC Singapore’s general manager Zhang Weiwu added in the statement.

It is “the first dual currency card in Singapore to combine both USD and SGD customer accounts in one credit card”.

Credit card providers typically charge an administrative fee for currency conversions on credit card purchases made in foreign currencies. This fee is usually a percentage of the transaction cost, and depends on the rate set by the bank and by the credit card network, such as Visa or MasterCard. This fee is usually not explicitly given in the cardholder’s monthly statement.

Banks in Singapore have rolled out a few new credit cards since the start of the year in a bid to grow their slice of the market, where growth momentum is slowing. OCBC, which has set its sights on 30 per cent growth in card spending this year, launched its Voyage air miles card in March targeted at high net worth and affluent customers. ANZ also launched in March a credit card that lets cardholders choose what rebates they get.

ICBC Singapore, designated as the yuan clearing bank here, also came up with Singapore’s first yuan and Sing dollar dual currency credit card in 2011 – the RMB(renminbi)/SGD UnionPay dual currency credit card.

On the launch of its latest credit card, the bank said that its promotion incentives include “cashbacks on every new application and activation, and additional rewards for online applicants”. It has retail branches in Raffles Place, Orchard, Chinatown, Paya Lebar and Jurong East.