•  All the major mobile wallets – Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay – are available in Singapore. •  They can be used at any merchant that accepts contactless Visa, MasterCard, or American Express payments. Our banks have been active in payments innovation, with several home grown mobile payments apps. •  DBS has PayLah! and Standard Chartered has Dash. •  These pioneering apps allow users to easily pay friends and businesses that use the same app. •  And the newer apps can do even more. –  OCBC’s Pay Anyone allows customers to send money to friends in Singapore, using only their mobile number, Facebook ID, or email address. –  UOB has created UOB Mighty, an all-in-one mobile banking app and wallet similar to Android Pay. But the rest of the world has not been standing still. China, for instance, has been a hotbed for payments innovation. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  •  WeChat integrates social media and payments to let users make seamless peer-topeer payments, shop online, and even pay at physical merchants. •  These solutions have made themselves an indispensable part of their users’ daily lives. So, while there has been quite a bit of payments innovation in Singapore, our payments experience needs to be as good as the best we see globally. Our vision is to make Singapore an electronic payments society.
This positive growth performance has been broad-based, extending beyond the recovery of the mining sector and withstanding adverse shocks, such as droughts and record increases in oil prices. In 2006, real GDP growth was largely driven by the mining, agriculture, construction, transport and tourism sectors. Last year, Zambia achieved single-digit inflation in 30 years. What were the main contributing factors to this achievement? Bringing inflation down to single digits has been Government’s goal for a long time. It is, therefore, pleasing to note that last year, inflation fell to its lowest level in 30 years. At the end December 2006, the annual rate of inflation had fallen to 8.2 % from 15.9% achieved in 2005 and was well below the target of 10%. This positive development in inflation was due to continued implementation of prudent monetary and fiscal policies, coupled with increased food supply. This was despite the persistent rise in oil prices on the world market. This year so far, inflation has been in double digits. What are the reasons for such a development? What is the outlook for inflation at end of the second quarter? During the first quarter of 2007, containing inflation pressures was a challenge. Inflation rose to 12.7% in March 2007, reflecting both higher food and non-food inflation. Higher food inflation was explained by increased cost of most fresh vegetables, typical during this period.