Our vision is to create a bill payment experience where consumers and businesses can: •  electronically apply for GIRO bill payments;  •  seamlessly pay bills via a “request for payment” function that leverages off FAST fund transfers without needing to bank with the same bank as the biller; and  •  manage their standing payment instructions online or on their mobile phones. MAS is working with the banks and the payments industry to create seamless bill payments and collections. Mobile payments for public transport – account-based ticketing The way we pay for public transport is also due for a refresh. The Land Transport Authority has recently announced that by the end of this year, it will be conducting a pilot for its Account-Based Ticketing System. •  This system will allow commuters to use their existing contactless credit and debit cards to pay for train and bus rides. •  No longer will users have to queue to top-up their stored value transit cards. •  Users will even be able to use their mobile wallets to pay for public transport. An Account-Based Ticketing System will bring Singapore in line with other cities with worldclass public transport payment infrastructure such as London. Pervasive digitisation – maximising productivity gains from e-payments The fourth strategy is to help businesses to digitise their processes and integrate them with electronic payments solutions, so as to maximise productivity and efficiency gains.
But stability at the macroeconomic level does not mean stability for individual firms or industries. Indeed one of the virtues of macro stability is that it allows – indeed forces – firms to focus on the real long term business challenges and opportunities they face rather than how to survive or profit from the short-term cycle. It is not a paradox therefore that the Great Stability has also been a time of great change in industry in ownership, structure and technology. The Engineering Employers’ Federation has itself stated that ‘manufacturing prospers best in a stable macroeconomic environment with low inflation, low interest rates and stable exchange rates’. 3 That is not because they are a recipe for a quiet life but because they allow businesses to focus on what really matters – their products, their technology, their customers and their competition. In the last few years, macroeconomic stability has provided business with a platform for rapid changes in ownership, location and product mix, and for the transformation by IT of all business processes in the factory, the warehouse and the office. 1  Bean, C (1998), ‘The New U.K. Monetary Arrangements: a view from the literature’, Economic Journal, November. 2  ‘The Inflation Target Five Years On’, Quarterly Bulletin  3  ‘Manufacturing in the UK’, Engineering Employers Federation, May 2005.