Singapore Banks Throw Weight Behind Green Vehicles

Ahead of Tesla’s launch in Singapore, DBS is has announced financing for new and used electric and hybrid cars, while a partnership with OCBC will boost the availability of electric vehicle charging points.

As part of DBS’ efforts to incentivize the adoption of green practices and carbon footprint reduction, the bank is rolling out Singapore’s first green car loan, which is priced at 1.68 percent per annum, it announced on Monday.

The bank said there is much room for growth, citing Norway’s 54 percent electric car market share, compared to Singapore, where there are 43,000 electric and hybrid cars – only 6.8% of the car population.

It also said that lending to the electric vehicle instead of the combustion engine vehicle sector has lower environmental and social costs of approximately 40 percent and 16 percent respectively.

To accelerate the greening of Singapore’s land transport sector, OCBC Bank announced a strategic partnership with Charge+, an operator and provider of electric vehicle (EV) charging solutions that plans to install 10,000 EV charging points islandwide by 2030.

Under the memorandum of understanding signed by the two parties, OCBC Bank will encourage its property developer and property owner customers to install charging points at their premises, implement digital payment solutions for the charging service, and look into the financing for the infrastructure, an announcement on Monday said.

Just having the infrastructure is not good enough. There must be public adoption to enable a clean energy transportation system too. OCBC can therefore play the role as a meaningful financial services enabler in the electric vehicle ecosystem, Elaine Lam, OCBC head of global corporate banking, said in the announcement.

Last week, electric carmaker Tesla began taking orders for its Model 3 Standard Range and the Model 3 Performance in Singapore, which are priced from S$116,334 ($88,000), excluding COE.

The cars have a Vehicular Emissions Scheme (VES) banding, which entitles potential buyers to a S$25,000 rebate. Under the Electric Vehicle Early Adoption rebate scheme announced in 2020, customers who buy a new electric car also qualify for a 45 percent rebate on its Additional Registration Fee, capped at S$20,000.

The Singapore government in 2020 said it aims to phase out fossil fuel vehicles by 2040.