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PayNow is a near-instant real-time payment system developed by Association of Banks in Singapore.[1] The interface facilitates inter-bank peer-to-peer and person-to-merchant transactions. The system is supported by all major Singaporean banks and is regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and works by transferring funds between two bank accounts.

Payments can be made to any registered Singaporean mobile number, NRIC, corporate Unique Entity Number (UEN) or Virtual Payment Address (VPA).[1] Scanning QR codes is also an option. PayNow is linked with other payment providers including Stripe,[2] DuitNow (Malaysia),[3] PromptPay (Thailand)[4] and UPI (India).[5]

In 2020, 125 million transactions worth S$22 billion were processed through PayNow.[6]

Discontinuation of nickname feature

The nickname feature, introduced in 2017, allowed users to hide their account names with nicknames for privacy reasons. However, from 6 June 2026, the nickname feature was discontinued, due to concerns of impersonation by scammers. Businesses who use Unique Entity Numbers (UENs) are unaffected as they do not have access to the nickname feature.[7]

Instead, users’ real names are displayed and partially censored by replacing some letters with X. Other symbols, such as the asterisk or dash, were not used since not all systems were able to handle special characters. This led to some backlash, since inappropriate words such as sex can derive from the surname See after partial censorship.[8]

International collaboration

Project Nexus

The Bank for International Settlements signed an agreement with Central Bank of Malaysia, Bank of Thailand, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the Reserve Bank of India on 30 June 2024 as founding member of Project Nexus, a multilateral international initiative to enable retail cross-border payments. Bank Indonesia participated as a special observer until February 2026 when it became a full member.[9] The platform, which is expected to go live by 2026, will interlink domestic fast payment systems of the member countries.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b “PayNow Singapore”. The Association of Banks in Singapore. Archived from the original on 7 December 2023.
  2. ^ Ng, Kelly (21 April 2022). “Singapore-based Stripe users can now accept payments via PayNow”. The Business Times. Retrieved 19 August 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  3. ^ Ganapathy, Kurt (27 September 2021). “Singapore’s PayNow to be linked with Malaysia’s DuitNow in phases from 2022”. CNA. Archived from the original on 28 December 2023.
  4. ^ “Initiative: BoT and MAS’s PromptPay-PayNow link”. Central Banking. 31 March 2022. Archived from the original on 2 December 2023.
  5. ^ Ang, Prisca (14 September 2021). “PayNow to link with India’s UPI for instant, low-cost fund transfers”. The Straits Times. Archived from the original on 24 February 2023.
  6. ^ Yong, Clement (4 October 2021). “PayNow transactions doubled to $22 billion in 2020, on track to set higher record this year”. The Straits Times. Archived from the original on 3 December 2022.
  7. ^ Yow, Daphne (29 April 2026). “PayNow nickname feature to be discontinued on Jun 6 to combat impersonation scams”. CNA. Retrieved 11 June 2026.
  8. ^ Chan, Emil (10 June 2026). “Bank association ‘aware of feedback’ after PayNow name masking spells out inappropriate words”. CNA. Retrieved 11 June 2026.
  9. ^ “Indonesia joins BIS Nexus project for instant cross-border payments”. Antara News. 3 February 2026. Retrieved 26 April 2026.
  10. ^ Kawale, Ajinkya (1 July 2024). “RBI, four Asean countries tie up for cross-border payments platform”. Business Standard. Retrieved 2 July 2024.