Will cheque-free society be a reality for Singapore in the near future?
The answer might be yes in 2025.
The Singapore Government has announced several measures recently to move towards this target.
One of the key measures – PayNow will soon encompass payment and receipts among businesses.
This service allows the businesses and the Government to pay and receive funds instantaneously with the linking of Unique Entity Number (UEN) to their Singapore bank account.
The launch of PayNow Corporate follows from last year successful launch of PayNow for consumers and is part of Singapore’s Smart Nation drive to adopt digital payments.
In 2017, the shares of cheques as a proportion of all payments were about 28 percent compared to 37% in 2015.
Amid the increasing adoption rate of digital payments by consumers and businesses, it will clearly reduce the usage of cheques.
With digital payments, it helps to shorten the cash receipt cycle for the businesses as they could receive the funds almost instantly.
It also reduces the risk of missing cheques from customers or to suppliers.
The additional benefit is that it could be integrated with the e-invoicing adopted by the businesses.
Undeniably, such integration facilitates the payment received from customers and adds convenience to the customers.
It is also especially relevant for businesses to make a one-off payment such as insurance premium and casual labor wages without having to keep track of the payee bank account details.
If you would like to find out how the digital payments might help your business improve cash flow and enhance efficiency in payment processing, please feel free to talk to us and we will glad to share you with our professional advice.