PayNow

PayNow is a near-instant real-time payment system developed by Association of Banks in Singapore. 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). Scanning QR codes is also an option. PayNow is linked with other payment providers including Stripe, DuitNow (Malaysia), PromptPay (Thailand) and UPI (India).

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

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 involved as a special observer. The platform, which is expected to go live by 2026, will interlink domestic fast payment systems of the member countries.