Singapore’s PayNow reaches over $720m in monthly transactions

Singapore national fund transfer service PayNow has reached over S$1 billion (US$720 million) in monthly transactions, Ong Ye Kung, Education Minister and Monetary Authority of Singapore board member, told Parliament Tuesday.

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As of July this year, the number of PayNow transactions have jumped by more than 33x to 5 million from 150,000 when it was launched in July 2017, revealed Ong.

PayNow allows users to transfer funds instantly using the payee’s designated mobile number, national registered identity card, or unique entity number (UEN) instead of his or her bank account number.

According to a report by Today, Ong was responding to Parliament member Ang Wei Neng who asked about the service’s current adoption rate and the government’s plan to spur adoption of cashless transactions in the city-state.

Ong said PayNow has seen 2.8 million individual registrations since launch, 1.8 million of which are bank accounts linked to mobile phone numbers. The rest are linked to identity card numbers. This growth represents a 75% increase from 1.6 million individual registrations recorded in August last year, The Straits Times reported.

The government also estimates that there are more than 65% of Singaporeans aged between 20 and 75 who have already registered for PayNow, and the numbers are “still increasing,” said Ong.

For PayNow Corporate, a service the firm launched in August 2018 for businesses, Ong said over 115,000 UENs have been registered, which represents roughly half of the total number of UENs issued to active businesses.

He also revealed that 32,000 QR codes for payments have been deployed in places such as hawker centers, supermarkets, and healthcare outlets, representing a 20% penetration rate.

The official reiterated the government’s push for e-payments in Singapore, saying that they expect the volume for this mode of payment to grow.

Other local payment players are seeing positive trends as well. For one, fintech company Red Dot Payment, which broke even in October 2018, revealed that it’s on track to seeing over S$1 billion in transactions this year.

According to Singapore Business Review, the growth of e-payments in the country is steady, with smartphone advances, APIs, and distributed ledger technology among the key drivers. Consumer demand is also a factor, as more users require payment solutions that support a mobile and international lifestyle.

Currency converted from Singapore dollar to US dollar: US$1 = S$1.39.