|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
In a significant move towards seamless cross-border financial transactions, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) unveiled the real-time payment systems linkage between Singapore’s PayNow and Malaysia’s DuitNow. This initiative signifies a significant leap in digital payment collaboration between the two nations.
Marking the official launch, MAS Managing Director Mr Ravi Menon and BNM Governor Mr Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour conducted live cross-border fund transfers at the Singapore FinTech Festival.
The PayNow-DuitNow linkage enables instantaneous, secure, and cost-effective peer-to-peer fund transfers and remittances between Singapore and Malaysia. This innovative system stands as the first to involve non-bank financial institutions from both countries, widening access for a larger user base.
Users of participating financial institutions can conveniently send and receive funds of up to SG$1,000 or MYR3,000 daily using the recipient’s mobile phone number Virtual Payment Address (VPA). A VPA is an identifier used by Singapore non-bank financial institutions which are uniquely linked to a person’s bank account.
The service’s rollout will occur in phases, starting with Liquid Group, Maybank Singapore, OCBC, and UOB in Singapore. These institutions will progressively expand eligible user groups until January 2024, ensuring customers become acquainted with the service. In Malaysia, CIMB, Maybank, and TNG Digital users will access the service initially, with other financial institutions joining subsequently.
The collaboration involved extensive efforts from central banks, payment system operators, scheme owners, and participating financial institutions of both countries. This milestone aims to improve the cost, speed, accessibility, and transparency of cross-border payments, aligning with the ASEAN Payment Connectivity Initiative and the G20 Roadmap for Enhancing Cross-border Payments.
MAS Managing Director Mr Ravi Menon expressed, “The PayNow-DuitNow linkage is the result of Singapore and Malaysia’s shared aspiration to facilitate seamless cross-border payments. This initiative aligns with ASEAN’s vision for regional payments interconnectivity.”
BNM Governor Datuk Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour highlighted the immense benefits of fast, secure, and cost-efficient cross-border payments for individuals and small businesses in close economic ties like Malaysia and Singapore.
“The PayNow-DuitNow linkage paves the way for shared growth and prosperity,” he remarked, emphasising its role in establishing scalable cross-border payment networks across and beyond ASEAN.
The real-time payment systems linkage follows the successful introduction of cross-border QR payments for merchants, announced earlier in March 2023.
OpenGov Asia reported that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) had set up a way for people in Singapore and Malaysia to pay with QR codes. With this payment linkage, customers of financial institutions were able to scan NETS QR and DuitNow QR codes to make retail payments.
It will let people pay in person by scanning QR codes that stores put up, and it will also let people buy things online from other countries. The payment linkage will make it easier for merchants and customers to send and receive payments.
The NETS-DuitNow QR code payment linkage is a big step forward in the work that Singapore and Malaysia are doing together to improve cross-border payments. The average annual traffic between the two countries before the pandemic was about 12 million people.
In 2022, P2P and remittance transactions between Singapore and Malaysia amounted to SG$2.3 billion/MYR7.8 billion, showcasing the substantial impact and potential of this enhanced payment linkage.
