PayNow could soon move beyond basic transfers as Singapore studies new features for consumers, merchants, businesses and government payments.
The work is being led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) under the PayNow Gen2 study.
The study will focus on four possible areas of upgrade across Singapore’s instant payments infrastructure. These include QR payment interoperability, online checkout improvements, larger-value payments to government agencies and expanded capabilities for business use.
The areas were identified through consultations with 37 organisations and benchmarking against 11 jurisdictions.
Making PayNow Work Across More Payment Use Cases
One proposed change would improve interoperability between PayNow and NETS QR.
This would allow consumers to scan and pay at merchants regardless of which payment scheme the merchant uses. MAS and ABS aim to pilot this by the end of 2026.
Another area will look at deep-linking within PayNow QR codes to make online checkout easier.
This would reduce the number of steps needed to complete a payment and could help online merchants cut lost sales. MAS and ABS aim to have this ready within a year.
The study will also examine larger-value PayNow transactions for government agencies through a sandboxed pilot with transaction limits and safeguards.
Larger payments to government agencies are currently made through GIRO, which requires pre-registration and can take up to three business days to process.
For businesses, longer-term capabilities may include request-to-pay, structured data fields for automated reconciliation, micropayments, expanded cross-border connectivity, offline payment capabilities and features to support agentic commerce.
MAS and ABS will begin foundational work on these capabilities this year.
The findings from the first phase of the study are set out in a report titled “PayNow Generation 2: Defining the Next Wave of Innovation for Singapore’s Instant Payments System.”
The next phase will involve MAS and ABS working with industry participants on implementation steps and pilots for selected enhancements.
An implementation roadmap is expected by the end of 2026.
Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by ramstudio via Magnific
