NETS appointed to run unified e-payment system at hawker centres, canteens and coffee shops; Singapore launches SGQR, world's first unified nationwide QR code

By Irene Tham, Senior Tech Correspondent, The Straits Times, 13 Sep 2018

Singapore took its most significant step in its cashless drive by appointing NETS yesterday to bring e-payments to all 12,000 stalls at hawker centres, canteens and coffee shops with a single, unified system.

As the country's first "master acquirer", e-payment firm NETS will supply hawkers with hardware that can accept e-payments from 20 sources for a start, including e-wallets like Singtel Dash and GrabPay, transport cards ez-link and NETS FlashPay, and credit cards such as Visa and Mastercard. NETS will settle accounts with the hawkers, which means they no longer need to put up with the hassle of dealing with different e-payment firms.

The all-in-one e-payment terminals, which can read contactless and chip-based cards, and process QR code payments, will also be rented to hawkers for no charge for the first three years after they sign up with NETS. Transaction fees of 0.5 per cent will be borne by the Government during the period. Stalls have until August 2020 to apply for the fee waivers.

NETS said that it has not decided what the charges would be after the three years.

By addressing most of the obstacles cited by hawkers, including high transaction fees and having to deal with different firms to receive payments, the Government hopes to convince more hawkers to take the cashless leap. In Singapore, about 40 per cent of dining occasions take place at coffee shops, hawker centres and canteens.

NETS' appointment comes after Enterprise Singapore, the National Environment Agency and the Housing Board jointly called for bids from the industry in May.

Mr Ted Tan, deputy chief executive officer of Enterprise Singapore, said in a statement yesterday: "The Government is enhancing the dining experience by providing customers with a unified e-payment solution where transactions can be made easily, quickly and securely."

National Day Rally 2017: One Year On

A better pre-school education, a fight against diabetes and a drive to be a Smart Nation were highlighted by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at his National Day Rally last year as efforts that could benefit Singapore in the long run. A year on, The Straits Times looks at progress and challenges in these areas.


Diabetes: Cheaper screening, low-sugar options in war against disease
Multi-pronged diabetes fight includes helping expectant mums and healthier food choices
By Salma Khalik, Senior Health Correspondent, The Straits Times, 18 Aug 2018

At last year's National Day Rally, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spoke of the need to tackle diabetes here.

The silent killer increases people's risk of contracting other serious medical problems such as stroke, heart attack and kidney failure.

About 400,000 people here have the disease, though not all are aware of it as there are no symptoms in the early stages. This makes Singapore the developed country with the second-highest rate of diabetes, after the United States.

If nothing is done to curb the disease, the number of diabetics is projected to rise to one million by 2050 - and cost the country $2.5 billion a year in treatment and lost productivity, up from about $1 billion now.

Since the Prime Minister flagged the need to fight diabetes in August last year, the Health Promotion Board (HPB) has made it cheaper for people to screen for this and other chronic ailments.

For a flat fee of $5 - it is $2 for Community Health Assist Scheme card holders and free for pioneers - eligible Singaporeans can be screened for up to five conditions, including diabetes.

The fee covers the follow-up consultation should the person have any of the conditions.

By May this year, more than 45,000 people had been screened.

The HPB also funds food manufacturers to encourage them to come up with products containing less sugar.

Its aim is to cut the sugar intake here by 25 per cent by 2020.

White rice is a major source of sugar intake here, so the HPB is also pushing for more people to turn to brown rice, which does not spike blood sugar levels as much.

It also works with hawkers to offer healthier options such as brown rice noodles and to add some brown rice in rice cakes and glutinous rice.

Health Minister Gan Kim Yong recently spoke of making water more widely available with drinking points in public places.

It has already become a must for water to be served at all government and People's Association functions, instead of just the ubiquitous syrup drinks.

He is hoping to make drinking water the default. Today, about 100 million cans of sweetened soda are sold here every month - or more than one billion cans a year.

SkillsFuture for Digital Workplace: Big push to equip workers with basic digital skills

Largest national training programme in a decade to get 100,000 trained over 3 years
By Amelia Teng, Education Correspondent, The Straits Times, 6 Oct 2017

A major initiative to ensure that Singaporeans keep pace with the digital economy, at work and in everyday life, was launched yesterday.

Over the next three years, the SkillsFuture for Digital Workplace - the largest national training programme in a decade - aims to get 100,000 people equipped with basic digital skills that suit them, from the use of e-payments and e-commerce platforms, to data analytics and automation.

This will be done through two-day customised courses, developed with tech giants IBM, Lazada, Microsoft and Samsung. Courses cost $50 each, which can be paid using the $500 SkillsFuture credits given to all Singaporeans aged 25 and above.

SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) said the aim is to instil digital confidence and a positive attitude towards digital disruptions - a point which Minister for Education (Higher Education and Skills) Ong Ye Kung stressed yesterday when launching the initiative. "Every workplace that we go to - regardless of industry - we have to know IT, we have to know robotics, digital technology. We don't have to be experts, we don't all have to be coders but we must know that these are our friends," he said.

He recalled the sense of unease among certain segments of the population when Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, at this year's National Day Rally, highlighted the need to adopt cashless payments as key to Singapore's vision of becoming a Smart Nation. "The recent feedback we got when e-payment came on stream was a sign of this (fear)," said Mr Ong. "There are people who are not familiar with technology and they are afraid, concerned."

He described the digital workplace initiative as a "friendly way" to overcome this. He hopes that "more and more workers can be familiarised with digital technologies and that will help Singapore in our economic restructuring".

The courses, which SSG chief executive Ng Cher Pong said have already drawn strong interest from the public and small and medium-sized enterprises, will introduce participants to how technology can uplift jobs and personal lives.

PARKING.SG: Pay for public parking fees via mobile app from 1 Oct 2017

Coupon-free parking app goes online Oct 1
Motorists can pay for parking and extend sessions via their mobile phones at 1,100 carparks
By Adrian Lim, Transport Correspondent, The Straits Times, 30 Sep 2017

Scouring for parking coupons or looking for another driver to buy them from will now be a thing of the past.

The Parking.sg app, announced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at this year's National Day Rally, makes its debut tomorrow, letting motorists pay for parking at public carparks through their mobile phones.

It can be used at all 1,100 carparks which still require coupons. Through the app, motorists can use their credit or debit cards to pay parking charges.

The app, however, can be used only for cars and light goods vehicles for now.

The scheme will be extended to motorcycles and heavy vehicles by the end of the year, the Housing Board, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and the Government Technology Agency of Singapore said yesterday.

The agencies added that even as the new app is rolled out, paper coupons can still be used.



The app will automatically calculate parking fees based on 30-minute blocks, but if motorists move their vehicles out earlier and end the session, they will be charged on a per-minute basis and get a refund.

This will prevent overpaying.

Under the coupon system, motorists pay 60 cents for 30 minutes, even if they leave earlier.

The app, which will be available from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, will also alert motorists when their parking sessions are about to expire. Instead of running back to their vehicle to display more coupons, they can extend their sessions through the app.

Parking.sg is part of Singapore's drive towards becoming a Smart Nation. Trials, involving more than 15,000 public officers and selected members of the public, were conducted in two phases - from May to June and from July to this month.

Enhanced Screen for Life starts 1 Sep 2017; 1.8 million Singaporeans to get letters on cheap health screening

Those eligible pay $5 at most to get tested for up to five diseases

By Salma Khalik, Senior Health Correspondent, The Straits Times, 31 Aug 2017

Letters are being sent out in batches to 1.8 million Singaporeans aged 40 years and older, inviting them to go for health screening for up to five diseases by paying $5 at most. All the letters will be sent out by the year end.

The Enhanced Screen for Life, announced by Senior Minister of State for Health Chee Hong Tat during the parliamentary debate on his ministry's Budget in March this year, starts tomorrow.

Under it, all eligible people can be screened for diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels. Woman can be screened for cervical cancer, and people aged 50 years and older can test for colorectal cancer.

The screening, which is free for pioneers, costs $2 for those with the Community Health Assist Scheme card, and $5 for others. The screening includes a consultation with a doctor when the results are known, and can be done at more than 1,000 general practice clinics in the scheme.

Mr Chee told The Straits Times: "The aim of enhancing Screen For Life is to encourage Singaporeans to go for regular health screening, so that any problems can be detected early and better managed with appropriate intervention.

"Together with healthy eating and regular exercise, this is part of our collective efforts to keep Singaporeans healthy and lower the risk of diabetes and other chronic diseases."

50 MOE kindergartens to open by 2023

16 more Ministry of Education (MOE)  kindergartens to open in next three years
MOE aims to have 50 by 2023; full-day pre-school places will be upped by 40,000
By Priscilla Goy and Yuen Sin, The Straits Times, 24 Aug 2017

Sixteen new kindergartens run by the Ministry of Education (MOE) will open in the next three years as part of a wide-ranging effort to offer affordable, high-quality pre-school education to more children.

By 2023, MOE hopes to have 50 such kindergartens located in primary schools and providing 14,000 places - enough to cater to a fifth of all Singaporeans and permanent residents aged five and six.

Over the next five years, full-day pre-school places will also be ramped up by another 40,000, part of which will come from new "early years centres" that take in children aged up to four and are run by government-funded pre-school operators.

To ensure a steady pipeline of quality educators, the National Institute of Early Childhood Development will take in its first batch of students in 2019. It is expected to provide 60 per cent of all trainee pre-school teachers in the next few years.

These details were revealed by MOE yesterday, expanding on initiatives announced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in Sunday's National Day Rally, in which he said he wants every child to go to a good pre-school.

Minister for Education (Schools) Ng Chee Meng stressed that these moves were not an attempt to nationalise the early childhood sector. He pointed out that the 50 kindergartens MOE aims to have are still a minority compared with the 450 or so kindergartens already running.

Instead, the MOE kindergartens will serve as the "engine" driving higher teaching standards, and better pedagogies and curricula in a bid to "uplift the (early childhood) landscape".

He said pre-school education has moved on from rote learning methods in his time, "when we learn mathematics is one plus one equals two and we recite the timetables". The focus now is on getting young children to learn through exploration and play, and "allow them to expand their natural curiosity and develop that creativity".

"We want to ensure that every child in Singapore will have access to equal opportunity and social mobility - that every child has a strong start regardless of family background so that they can have a solid foundation in the first steps towards our education journey," said Mr Ng. He highlighted how subsidised monthly fees at MOE kindergartens are as low as $1.50 for households with an income of less than $2,500.

Can Singapore catch up in race to go cashless?; Banks in Singapore to use NETS QR code for cashless payments

By Irene Tham, Senior Tech Correspondent, The Straits Times, 24 Aug 2017

In high-tech Singapore, where cashless payment options abound, consumers prefer to fish for physical notes and jiggle coins to pay for goods and services.

Last year, six out of 10 consumer transactions were made in cash here - a huge spanner in the works for Singapore's Smart Nation drive.

In his National Day Rally speech on Sunday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong contrasted Singaporeans' highly connected lifestyle and digital literacy with their unwillingness to go digital when it comes to payment. As such, Singapore lags behind other cities on this front.

Recognising that Singapore has too many different payment schemes and systems that act as impediments, confusing people, he made a call to the industry to "simplify and integrate".

Singapore has to play catch-up with places like China, where everyone in major Chinese cities is scanning a QR code and paying with digital wallets WeChat Pay and Alipay. These digital wallets, linked to the Chinese people's bank accounts, are even accepted at roadside stalls and in taxis. Waiters at restaurants can be tipped in the same cashless way.

Cash may be considered king, but there is a cost to handling it - from the time taken to count it, to storing it securely, and then banking it. Think of the hawker who has to ensure he has cash for change, and needs to take time to count out change for each customer, holding up customers waiting for their food.



Over in India, the government has laid the groundwork for a cashless society following its announcement late last year to demonetise the nation's high-value currency notes. It pushed a national digital funds transfer system, called Bharat Interface for Money, and a biometric identification system, dubbed Aadhaar, to secure transactions. Its goal is to ensure that all Indians, even the rural poor, have access to financial services through digital banking.

WHY SO SLOW?

In many ways, Singapore is a victim of its own success.

Major banks here - DBS Bank, POSB, OCBC Bank and United Overseas Bank - combined have about 2,000 ATMs islandwide. This means an ATM is within a 500m radius from most people's homes, making cash easily available.

Singapore also lacks the push factors present in China and India.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's drive to promote a cashless society stems from a political will to eliminate the flow of undeclared "black money" and fake currencies. Electronic money transfers are more traceable and taxable.

Concerns over counterfeit money and the fear of being robbed - not a problem with digital payment systems - drove China's cashless revolution.

In contrast, people in Singapore feel safer with their cash. Also, some had a bad experience with wrong electronic transfer charges and vowed to stay away - at least from its use in certain apps.

Said account manager Kelly Kin, 29, after once having been wrongfully charged by a local ride-hailing app: "I have gone back to using cash in the app ever since."

'Invisibility' makes managing money hard for youth

Financial literacy experts say as society goes cashless, the young lose sight of value of money
By Serene Luo, Deputy Schools Editor, The Straits Times, 21 Aug 2017

University education for British citizens used to be free - until the late 1990s when policies changed and students instead took loans to pay for tuition fees.

By 2013, students would graduate with some £45,000 (S$80,000) of debt, as they would have borrowed roughly £9,000 for tuition and £6,000 for room and board each year.

On top of that, said Mrs Marilyn Holness and Dr Nicky Reid, students were being handed cheques as part of their loans every few months - to pay for their rent and bills - but they had not been taught to manage their finances and often found themselves struggling to buy food before their next cheque was to arrive.

The two were behind the Money Doctors national support service for students in Britain, which at its peak reached 200,000 students in more than 100 universities there, teaching them life skills in managing their personal finances.

Both of them are at the University of Roehampton: Mrs Holness is director of student engagement, and Dr Reid is an educational developer at the learning and teaching department.

They were recently in Singapore to conduct workshops for parents and children as part of the RHB Financial Literacy Programme by RHB Bank.

The "invisibility of money to young people" is one main factor exacerbating the problems that young people have with money, they said.

Said Dr Reid: "For Marilyn and me, our parents worked and brought home pay packets - money in little brown envelopes. Money was spoken about in the household. As a child, you knew things had to be paid for (out of this packet). We knew money was finite.

"But now, kids sit in a trolley in the supermarket, and you take whatever you want and pay with a piece of plastic."

Added Mrs Holness: "Also, with ATMs, (as a child) you see people put a card in the wall and out comes money like magic."

They named things such as contactless card payments, or features like Apple Pay on the iPhone, as adding to that invisibility of money.

Singapore, for instance, wants to be a Smart Nation where technology has widespread use, including e-payments and banking transactions.

The downside is that "you don't make a tangible link when you tap that it (money) is coming out of your account", Dr Reid said.

This can lead to the inability to understand what money is worth and, eventually, bad financial habits.

Added Mrs Holness: "Even if you don't change your behaviour, be aware of it. Challenging attitudes towards money is the first step to changing behaviour. If you are not aware of it, you can't change."

For instance, property agent David Ng, 45, said his eldest son, 13, thought of car-hailing services like Grab as "cheap" and that "he could just keep pressing the button (on his cellphone to book a car)".

National Day Rally 2017

Building up preschools, Fighting diabetes and Making Singapore a Smart Nation







Pre-school sector to ramp up quality, offer more places
At National Day Rally, PM Lee also focuses on fighting diabetes and creating smart nation
By Royston Sim, Assistant Political Editor, The Straits Times, 21 Aug 2017

Singapore will double its annual spending on pre-schools in the next five years, to add 40,000 new places for children and improve the quality of pre-school education.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong yesterday announced three initiatives to build up the pre-school sector so that every child - regardless of family background - can have the best possible start in life.

Besides increasing the number of childcare places for children aged up to four, the Government will roll out more kindergartens and set up a new centralised training institute for pre-school teachers.

"Today, every child goes to a good school. We want every child to go to a good pre-school," said Mr Lee.

"If we get this right, we will foster social mobility and sustain a fair and just society."

At his 14th National Day Rally, Mr Lee focused on building for the future, highlighting three issues that he said are important for the nation's prosperity and the well-being of its citizens in the long term.

Unlike past rallies where he spoke of Singapore's future, its economy or geopolitical issues, Mr Lee homed in this year on improving pre-school education, fighting diabetes and creating a smart nation that offers opportunities for all.

He noted that the economy is expected to grow by about 2.5 per cent this year, and, most encouragingly, productivity went up by 1 per cent last year after years of almost zero growth.

But he moved beyond immediate priorities like creating jobs to discuss longer-term issues.



He said the Government had moved decisively to transform the pre-school sector five years ago, by creating nearly 50,000 childcare and kindergarten places, increasing pre-school subsidies and raising education standards.

Anchor operators will build more childcare centres in new Housing Board developments to address a shortage of places in young towns.

To improve the quality of education, the Ministry of Education (MOE) will increase the number of its own kindergartens from 15 now to 50 in the next five years, Mr Lee said. This greater scale will allow MOE to influence and raise the quality of the whole sector, he added.

In addition, a National Institute for Early Childhood Development will be set up to consolidate existing training programmes for teachers and develop new curricula.

The Government will also work with employers to ensure salaries for pre-school teachers rise in tandem with their career progression.

Annual spending on pre-schools, which was $360 million in 2012, has more than doubled to $840 million this year. It will double further to $1.7 billion in 2022, he said.

But pouring resources into the sector will mean little unless young parents do their part, he added, as he encouraged them to have more babies.

ESM Goh Chok Tong calls for 'stronger, more inclusive' leadership team

With Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong stating that he will step down by 70, the new generation of leaders will have to quickly establish themselves as a cohesive team, the Emeritus Senior Minister says.
Channel NewsAsia, 19 Aug 2017

Singapore's new generation of leaders will have to build a "stronger and more inclusive millennial generation team", said Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong on Saturday (Aug 19).

Speaking at a National Day Dinner for his constituency, Marine Parade, Mr Goh said the robustness of the country's leadership pipeline is one of the determinants of how a "small boat like Singapore" will fare in a turbulent climate of internal and external challenges. Other factors, he said, include the resilience of its politics as well as the cohesiveness of its multi-racialism and social equity.



Mr Goh noted that 65-year-old Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has said he will step down by the age of 70.

"The fourth generation (4G) leaders will have to quickly establish themselves as a cohesive team and identify the captain amongst them," he said in the speech.

"They must try their utmost to bring in potential office-holders from outside the Singapore Armed Forces and public sector to avoid group-think. Highly competent Singaporeans outside the Government must also be prepared to step up and serve," he said.

Beyond technical competence, Mr Goh also said Singaporeans will want to know what "the leaders stand for, what kind of Singapore they want to build and what they will pass on to the fifth generation later".

Public transport system to go fully cashless by 2020; Pupils go cashless with smartwatches

Drive to go cashless on public transport
All bus, train fares to be paid using travel cards by 2020; no cash top-ups at stations
By Adrian Lim, Transport Correspondent, The Straits Times, 12 Aug 2017

Singapore's public transport system is set to go fully cashless by 2020, with all bus and train rides to be paid for using only travel cards and top-ups with cash no longer available at stations.

The first cashless rail line will be the Thomson-East Coast Line, which will open from 2019.

The goal of going fully cashless, in line with the Smart Nation push, was announced by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and subsidiary TransitLink yesterday.

To nudge commuters on board, rail operators SMRT and SBS Transit will not offer cash top-ups at passenger service centres at 11 train stations from Sept 1. They are: Admiralty, Bedok, Bukit Panjang, Buona Vista, Farrer Park, HarbourFront, Hougang, Lakeside, Pasir Ris, Serangoon and Yew Tee.

Cash top-ups will cease to be available at passenger service centres of other stations sometime next year.

Currently, about 27 per cent of commuters rely on staff at the passenger service centres to help reload their cards with cash. Service agents will be deployed at the 11 stations to help these commuters switch to using the general ticketing machines, which accept cash.

These machines will not accept cash by 2020, when self-service ticketing machines at stations and bus interchanges will accept only cashless top-ups such as with Nets.



LTA's group director for technology and industry development, Mr Lam Wee Shann, said: "When we relieve PSC (passenger service centre) staff from handling cash and doing top-ups, their attention could be more focused on train station operations, which is their core job."

He added: "There are also costs that are not small in maintaining cash transactions. By going cashless, cost avoidance can be re-invested into the public transport system, to improve and maintain it."



LTA and TransitLink said they have been adding payment options at ticketing machines since January to accept credit or debit cards and mobile payment platforms such as Apple Pay and Android Pay.

They assured commuters cash top-ups will continue to be available come 2020, but in limited forms, such as at convenience stores.

While cash is currently accepted at 39 TransitLink ticket offices located at stations and bus interchanges, the agencies said they are working towards removing this, but will study this plan "very carefully".

NDP 2017: Singapore celebrates 52nd National Day

National Day Parade 2017: One heart, one nation, one Singapore
Drone display dazzles crowd at Marina Bay as Singapore turns 52
By Audrey Tan, The Straits Times, 10 Aug 2017

With the Marina Bay skyline serving as a backdrop, Singaporeans celebrated the nation's 52nd birthday and cheered the return of crowd favourites such as the Red Lions skydivers.

The Marina Bay floating platform proved to be a hit for the tens of thousands of people clad in red and white, returning as a National Day Parade (NDP) venue for the first time since 2014.

Last year, the NDP was held at the new National Stadium, while the SG50 bash was held at the Padang.

Always intended to be an interim venue while the new National Stadium was being built, the floating platform has become a popular choice for NDP due to its location.

Attendees said the whole area is an embodiment of what Singapore was, is, and will be.

Teacher Kathiravan Bhupathy, 32, said: "This is the venue for NDP. At one look here, you can see how far Singapore has come."



The theme of this year's parade - #OneNationTogether - is a "call-to-action for all Singaporeans to take pride in our achievements, and to be confident in our collective future as we overcome all odds together".

There were hints of the future and the Smart Nation ambition, with Edgar the robot co-hosting, and a light show put on by 300 drones taking to the skies at the same time. Pre-programmed using sophisticated algorithms, the drones winked and danced against the Marina Bay skyline.



After a two-year hiatus - due to the weather one year and logistics the next - the nine-member Singapore Armed Forces Parachute Team, or Red Lions, returned to rapturous applause from the 25,000- strong crowd as they glided effortlessly onto the floating platform.

The audience was in awe of the dynamic defence display, showcasing Singapore's military assets on land, air and sea, back also after a two-year break.

There was also a reminder of challenges and the ability to overcome them. For the first time, yesterday's defence display included a demonstration of the Republic's capabilities in the event of a terrorist attack. Performers fired blanks while in the seating gallery to add to the realism.



The show ended revealing Singaporeans who had scaled their own peaks.

Swimmer Joseph Schooling, who clinched Singapore's first Olympic gold, and Paralympic champion Yip Pin Xiu stood on the summit of a replica of a mountain.

They were accompanied by others such as top female police officer Zuraidah Abdullah, 55, and skills upgrader Rama Kerisna, 70.

Yesterday's celebrations also took on a sentimental note as President Tony Tan Keng Yam witnessed his last parade as head of state.



Speaking to the media after the parade, he said: "I'm touched by the affection which was displayed to me tonight... I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve as President and also to reach out to Singaporeans. My wife and I believe Singapore will continue to progress and I think that we'll have a marvellous future together. But we have to strive to work on, there is no end to our journey."

PayNow: Send cash with just recipient's mobile phone or identity card number from 10 July 2017

Go cashless with PayNow fund transfers from July 10
By Lee Xin En, The Straits Times, 28 Jun 2017

Singapore made another step towards becoming a cashless society with a new fund transfer option that requires just a mobile phone number or NRIC number.

The PayNow system, which will start on July 10, will be offered by seven banks.

People who want to receive payments will have to link their mobile and NRIC numbers to their accounts, either on the bank's website or through its mobile app.

One bank account can be linked to one mobile number and one NRIC number, and the sender will be able to see the recipient's name before confirming the transfer.



The push towards innovation in payments will help address an issue highlighted by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong earlier this year when he said that compared with other countries, Singapore could do more to promote cashless payments, in hawker centres, in shops and between people.

Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat told the annual Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) dinner last night that a Payments Council led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) will be set up. Its 18 representatives from banks, payment companies, industry associations and businesses will discuss payment strategies and promote solutions.

MAS is also reviewing the regulatory regime for payments, he said.

He added that the Government is looking into using PayNow to make payments directly to people's bank accounts using their NRIC numbers.

This would eliminate the need to "update each government agency one by one when we change banks. We will just need to link our new bank account to our NRIC via PayNow".