Written Answer

Volume and Value of Cashless Payments by Platforms and Updates on Progress and Sign Up Rate for Singapore Quick Response Code in Last Three Years

4 October 2021 · Prime Minister's Office

Speakers

Tharman Shanmugaratnam (Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for Social Policies) Ang Wei Neng

Summary

This question concerns the volume and value of cashless payments and the adoption progress of the Singapore Quick Response Code (SGQR). Mr Ang Wei Neng requested data on specific payment modes and the participation rates of hawkers and food court tenants from 2019 to 2021. Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam noted that PayNow transactions doubled in 2020 and SGQR acceptance points reached 260,000, covering 75% of merchants. He highlighted the success of the Hawkers Go Digital initiative, which saw 11,600 stallholders process $18.3 million in transactions in August 2021. The government continues to develop interoperable infrastructure to provide residents and businesses with safe, simple, and low-cost e-payment solutions.

Transcript

1 Mr Ang Wei Neng asked the Prime Minister (a) in the last three years, what are the respective volume and value of cashless payments of (i) credit card (ii) NETS (iii) e-wallets (iv) PayNow and (v) any other cashless payments; (b) what is the progress on the roll out of the Singapore Quick Response Code (SGQR); and (c) what is the respective number of (i) hawkers and (ii) coffee shop tenants and food court tenants signing up for the SGQR in 2019, 2020 and to date in 2021.

Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam (for the Prime Minister): Singapore residents and businesses have a wide variety of e-payment options. These include PayNow, PayNow Corporate, and SGQR that have been available for about three years, alongside credit and debit cards which remain popular with Singapore e-payment users.

Growth in the value and volume of PayNow and PayNow Corporate transactions has been strong, as reflected in Table 1. PayNow value and volumes doubled in 2020, and maintained robust growth momentum in the first half of 2021.1 Credit and debit card transaction values and volumes have been fairly stable during this period2, while digital wallet use has been growing.3

Take up for SGQR as a payment solution has also been good. SGQR has grown from about 42,000 merchant acceptance points in 2019, to around 120,000 in 2020 and at least 260,000 merchant acceptance points today. More than 150,000 merchants operating across various services industries including retail stores in shopping malls or food stalls at hawker centres now offer SGQR as a means of payment acceptance. This represents around 75% of merchants in Singapore.

The Hawkers Go Digital initiative launched in June 2020 has helped to promote SGQR in the heartlands. The adoption and use of SGQR under this initiative has been encouraging, as reflected in Table 2. In August 2021 alone, 11,600 stallholders in hawker centres, HDB coffee shops and JTC canteens made close to two million e-payment transactions representing a value of $18.3 million. Over 94% of these transactions were via SGQR.

We have put in place the backbone interoperable infrastructure to enable multiple payment service providers to offer users in Singapore a good array of safe, simple and secure e-payment solutions. We will continue on this drive to enable convenient and low-cost e-payments.