The Singapore government is set to allow access to its real-time payments system, FAST, to extend the availability of the payments systems for FinTechs and other payments players.
Singapore: Interoperable QR payments and FinTech access to real-time payments system
The country has also launched what it claims to be the world’s first unified payments QR code, which will be adopted by 27 payment schemes on the island.
With regards the real-time payments system, Singapore will form a Direct FAST industry working group, which would include banks, non-banks, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), to develop business and technical requirements for non-banks to connect directly to FAST.
Officials say they will look over parties interested in building and operating a FAST aggregator, which would help lower costs by bringing together the technical requirements across a number of players.
Open access to a common real-time payments infrastructure like FAST means that banks and non-banks have to innovate and offer value-added services constantly to stay ahead of the curve.
The Singapore Quick Response Code (SGQR) will be rolled out over the next six months in an effort to make QR-code-based mobile payments simpler to use for both consumers and merchants.
PayNow, Nets, GrabPay, Liquid Pay and Singtel Dash are among the payment schemes onboard for the project, which will see merchants replace their existing QR codes replaced with SGQR labels. Shoppers will be able to quickly check if their preferred QR option is on the label and then pick it, scan the code and make the payment.
Singapore’s education minister and MAS board member Ong Ye Kung says that the SGQR project is one of the last pieces in the country’s e-payments jigsaw, which has been gradually put together since the launch of the Fast real-time payments platform in 2014.
“We have taken some time to build up an open, accessible and inter-operable e-payments infrastructure which fosters competition, innovation and enhances consumer experience. SGQR is our latest feature, and we are developing the next piece in the national e-payments infrastructure through broader access to e-wallet players,” says the minister.
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