PayNow for Business to Promote Cashless Transactions in Singapore

New PayNow for Business in Singapore Can Emerge as a Game-Changer as it Will Facilitate Cashless and Speedy Transactions

PayNow for business is now available to the retail customers of 9 participating Singaporean banks. The peer-to-peer fund transfer service  is now present in the following banks in Singapore:

• UOB
• Standard Chartered Bank
• Maybank
• Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited
• OCBC Bank
• HSBC
• DBS Bank/POSB
• Citibank Singapore Limited
• Bank of China

PayNow provides an improved experience in the fund transfer. It allows these 9 banks’ retail customer to receive and send funds in the form of Singapore Dollar between two banks in the country. All they need is NRIC/FIN or mobile numbers and they can transfer money through FAST almost instantly.

A beautiful feature of the fund transfer facility is the sender does not have to know the recipient’s bank details. PayNow was introduced on July 10, 2017, and it is free of cost to retail customers. The service is available for 365 days and 24/7.

 

Know about PayNow for business

On August 13, 2018, the new PayNow for business was launched to offer e-payment services to the corporate. It will enable the government of Singapore and businesses to receive and make payments instantly using their UEN or Unique Entity Numbers.

As it is evident, the new PayNow for business is an extension of the earlier peer-to-peer service for fund transfer. It can be a real game changer in the coming days. The service is straightforward- it only needs the information about the payee’s NRIC or mobile number.

On August 10 this year, there were over 1.6 million registrations for the PayNow fund transfer service. Consumers transferred more than 1.2 billion Singaporean Dollars through PayNow.

Many experts regard it as a right step in the country’s drive and aspirations towards a cashless society and a unified e-payments solution. The nine participating banks have indicated a strong interest in the service.

ASEAN Financial Services shared that PayNow for business can be a real game-changer to establish Singapore as one of the smart financial hubs. The service can add several cost and convenience advantages to both consumers and, merchants.

Electronic fund service facilitates a ‘great’ value for money for SMEs as well as merchants. These businesses will now be able to get paid at what he terms as “reasonable cost in real-time.”

At present, a majority of merchants need to pay a fee between 2 to 4 percent to use checks or for collecting payments made in real-time. Thung feels that it is a gradual and costly process.

 

The Interest is Peaking, Both Among Consumers and Retailers

As many as three local banks in Singapore had shared that almost all their new customers have shown their willingness to subscribe to PayNow Corporate. According to OCBC, 9 out of the 10 new customers in the bank have already registered for this fund transfer service since the month of April. DBS had shared that almost one hundred percent of their new customers have registered themselves for PayNow since June.

In what seemed like a positive move, DBS has also declared its decision to waive all “inward” fees for PayNow for business (corporate and SMEs) for about 16 months (August 13, 2018-December 31, 2019). The bank added that it is expecting over 50,000 SMEs to register by the end of 2019. Plus, they will be waiving fees on over 1 million “inward” corporate transactions done via PayNow in the next one and half years.

Meanwhile, UOB had shared with a publication that it will allow its customers to register easily for the PayNow Corporate through its Internet Banking service for business. Well, the service is also available at its various branches. The bank also added that it has plans of including PayNow Corporate as a component of its “bundled cash management solution”. This will let businesses find it easier to manage their finances.

We also need to note that PayNow Corporate is now available to government agencies and corporate bodies. It is also available to businesses belonging to the banks whose names have been already mentioned in the beginning.

Thus, after the introduction of PayNow Corporate, retail customers of all these 9 banks will be able to utilize PayNow for different kinds of fund transfers like getting payments from the Singaporean government and sending payments to businesses.

 

The QR code for PayNow

There is also a choice available a fresh QR code. It gives corporates the option to get customer payments via that channel. In fact, the QR code for PayNow will be a feature of the QR code payments’ national standard. SG QR will be launched sometime later this year.

Singapore’s Association of Banks said it will be working closely with the industry for promoting PayNow as a secure and convenient technique for seamless fund transfer.

Entities have to sign up for this online service at the banking platform of their bank to receive funds. However, they can also visit or get in touch with the bank for further assistance.

Standard Chartered Bank Singapore mentioned that the bank has been observing quite a lot of interest in PayNow Corporate. Businesses from various sectors like charity, logistics, and airlines have been showing a keen interest and have approached Standard Chartered to enable customers to fund their investments using a PayNow ID.

The service is a better alternative to traditional methods like check and cash payments. It can let consumers reap benefits like increased operational efficiency, higher visibility of operations, and shorter receivable cycle.

A survey conducted by OCBC also revealed that 2 out of every 3 Singaporean SMEs have a possibility of going cashless. That includes removing the use of writing and using checks by the year 2023. Plus, over 45% of the survey participants stated that they might go cashless by the year 2020.