PayNow is a near-instant real-time

payment system A payment system is any system used to settle financial transactions through the transfer of monetary value. This includes the institutions, payment instruments such as payment cards, people, rules, procedures, standards, and technologies that ...

developed by Association of Banks in Singapore. The interface facilitates inter-bank

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network, forming a peer-to-peer network of Node ...

and person-to-merchant transactions. The system is supported by all major Singaporean banks and is regulated by the

Monetary Authority of Singapore The Monetary Authority of Singapore or (MAS), is the central bank and financial regulatory authority of Singapore. It administers the various statutes pertaining to money, banking, insurance, securities and the financial sector in general, as ...

(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 Stripe, striped, or stripes may refer to: Decorations *Stripe (pattern), a line or band that differs in colour or tone from an adjacent surface *Racing stripe, a vehicle decoration * Service stripe, a decoration of the U.S. military Entertainment ...

, DuitNow (Malaysia), PromptPay (Thailand) and

UPI United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ce ...

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

International collaboration

Project Nexus

The

Bank for International Settlements The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is an international financial institution which is owned by member central banks. Its primary goal is to foster international monetary and financial cooperation while serving as a bank for central bank ...

signed an agreement with

Central Bank of Malaysia The Central Bank of Malaysia (BNM; ; Jawi: ) is the Malaysian central bank. Established on 26 January 1959 as the Central Bank of Malaya (''Bank Negara Tanah Melayu''), its main purpose is to issue currency, act as the banker and advisor to the ...

Bank of Thailand The Bank of Thailand (BOT; Abbreviation, abbr. ธปท.; , ) is the central bank of Thailand. History The Bank of Thailand (BOT) was first set up as the Thai National Banking Bureau. The Bank of Thailand Act was promulgated on 28 April 1942 ...

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (; commonly abbreviated as BSP in both Filipino and English) is the central bank of the Philippines. It was established on January 3, 1949, and then re-established on July 3, 1993 pursuant to the provision of Re ...

, and the

Reserve Bank of India Reserve Bank of India, abbreviated as RBI, is the central bank of the Republic of India, and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system and Indian rupee, Indian currency. Owned by the Ministry of Finance (India), Min ...

on 30 June 2024 as founding member of Project Nexus, a multilateral international initiative to enable retail cross-border payments.

Bank Indonesia Bank Indonesia (BI) is the central bank of the Republic of Indonesia. It replaced in 1953 the Bank of Java (, DJB), which had been created in 1828 to serve the financial needs of the Dutch East Indies. History Bank of Java King William ...

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.

References

{{Digital payment providers 2017 establishments in Singapore Payment interchange standards Interbank networks Banking in Singapore Mobile payments Mobile payments in Singapore Payment networks Online payments