•  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.
A society: •  that spurs continuous innovation in payments technology;  •  that gives consumers maximum convenience and confidence in making payments;  •  that enables firms to increase productivity through payments integrated with business processes; and  •  where swift, simple, and secure payments is a reality for everyone. MAS has been working closely with the financial industry and other government agencies to drive electronic payments. We have also engaged KPMG Advisory to study Singapore’s payments landscape; KPMG’s report will be released later today. Let me elaborate on the four key strategies to create an e-payments society: •  streamlined regulation;  •  inclusive governance;  •  interoperable infrastructure; and  •  pervasive digitisation. Streamlined regulation – targeted, activity based, risk appropriate First, we will streamline our regulatory framework for payments; strengthen consumer protection; and make regulation more targeted based on the specific payment activities that businesses undertake. The existing regulatory framework for payments cuts across the Money-Changing and Remittance Businesses Act (“MCRBA”) and the Payment Systems (Oversight) Act (“PS(O)A”). The MCRBA was introduced in 1979, an era when bricks-and-mortar money changers and remittance agents were the norm. •  For more than three decades, it has served us well. •  We have a thriving remittance industry that provides an essential service to residents, including the many foreign workers in Singapore. The PS(O)A was enacted in 2006, with the objective of keeping our key payment systems safe and efficient.