Singapore's construction sector runs on some of the longest payment cycles in the economy. A developer or main contractor certifies work, and the money then filters down through layers of subcontractors and suppliers over weeks or months, leaving the smallest firms at the bottom of the chain waiting the longest for cash they have already earned. A new financing arrangement from OCBC, Visa and procurement-technology firm Doxa sets out to shorten that wait by pushing early financing deeper into the supply chain than banks typically reach.
The three partners have launched Singapore's first deep-tier financing solution for the construction industry. Branded Doxa Deep-Tier Financing, it lets subcontractors and suppliers several tiers below the main contractor draw payment ahead of their invoice due dates, rather than waiting for cash to trickle down the chain. OCBC has announced the launch on its own channels, saying it has deployed Singapore's first deep-tier financing solution for the sector, enabled by virtual purchasing cards.
"Businesses further down the supply chain play a critical role in delivering construction projects, yet they are often the most affected by payment delays and cash flow constraints."
— Carmen Chan, Deputy Head of Global Transaction Banking, OCBC
How deep-tier financing works
The solution runs on Doxa's Connex platform, which digitally connects developers, main contractors, subcontractors, suppliers and financiers around a shared set of approved commercial records, covering procurement documents, work claims, invoice approvals, payments and financing. Because the platform already holds the certified data, financing can be tied directly to an approved claim rather than assessed loan by loan.
The mechanism keys off the certification step. As soon as a developer or main contractor digitally approves a work claim on the platform, the subcontractors and suppliers beneath them become eligible to pull payment forward against that certified amount, rather than waiting for cash to reach them tier by tier. Funds are disbursed through OCBC virtual purchasing cards, and recipients can either transfer the proceeds to their own bank accounts or pay their own suppliers directly. Because each advance stays tied to one certified claim, a traceable thread runs from the approved work to the funds released against it.
The partners frame the split of responsibilities: OCBC brings the financing capability, Visa the digital payments and ecosystem reach, and Doxa the procurement and payments infrastructure the three are building on. The intent is to embed credit inside a workflow the parties already operate, rather than bolting a financing product onto the side.
"Through our collaboration with OCBC and Doxa, we are embedding financing directly into trusted project workflows, helping businesses address working capital challenges by gaining faster and more transparent access to funds."
— Adeline Kim, Group Country Manager for Regional Southeast Asia and SVP, Global Clients, Asia Pacific, Visa
Why it matters for the construction supply chain
Payment terms in construction can stretch to up to 100 days as claims move up and payments move back down through multiple tiers. The firms hit hardest are the lower-tier subcontractors and suppliers, often smaller businesses with the least room to absorb a cash-flow gap and the hardest time securing conventional financing, because lenders have little visibility of work several steps removed from the anchor buyer.
Embedding financing into an approval workflow those firms already use is meant to close that gap without adding a separate credit application. The financing decision relies on data the platform has already captured and the main contractor has already certified, letting a bank extend credit to counterparties it would not usually see.
Visa places the launch against a wider digitalisation gap in the sector. The company says its research found that nearly three-quarters of small and medium-sized construction businesses remain in the early stages of digitalisation, while more than two-thirds of those firms already report positive effects from digital tools across key business functions. On that reading, the constraint is less appetite than plumbing, and the deal aims to bring those firms into systems they have already adopted.
"Doxa Deep-Tier Financing was built to address one of the construction sector's most persistent challenges: cash flow across multiple layers of the supply chain."
— Edmund Ng, Founder and CEO, Doxa Holdings
Early adopters and the traceability angle
The solution went live in August 2026, and the partners say a first subcontractor has already drawn funds early under it. Kimly Construction is among the early adopters, deploying the arrangement across two existing projects, with selected subcontractors currently being onboarded. Neither transaction values nor overall financing volumes were disclosed.
"We are already seeing stakeholders benefit from its core features: allowing subcontractors and suppliers to access funds ahead of due dates. By providing the option to unlock the working capital earlier, it eases cash flow constraints and improves capital efficiency for our partners, thus ensuring a healthier supply chain and smoother, more efficient project delivery."
— Roy Khoo, Director, Kimly Construction
For compliance and finance teams, the notable feature is less the credit itself than how it is anchored. Because each advance is tied to a digitally approved claim on a shared platform, the arrangement builds an auditable record linking certified work to the financing extended against it, the kind of traceability that supply-chain finance has historically struggled to provide when deals are papered bilaterally. It also narrows a familiar control weakness, since the claim approval and the disbursement sit in the same system rather than being reconciled after the fact across separate ledgers.
The arrangement is a purely commercial one between OCBC, Visa and Doxa, with no regulator or government scheme attached. The partners describe this first rollout as a foundation for scaling deep-tier financing across Singapore's built environment sector, and say they will use feedback from participating subcontractors to refine the financing workflow before wider adoption. Whether it reaches the smallest suppliers, the ones furthest from the anchor buyer and least likely to be onboarded early, is the test worth watching.
