Reply to Parliamentary Question on PayNow collaboration with Thailand's PromptPay

QUESTION NO 285

NOTICE PAPER 186 OF 2020

FOR WRITTEN ANSWER

Date: For Parliament Sitting on 5 January 2021

Name and Constituency of Member of Parliament

Mr Don Wee, MP, Chua Chu Kang GRC

Question:

To ask the Prime Minister with regard to MAS' announcement that PayNow will be collaborating with Thailand's Promptpay, whether there will be confusion on the part of ASEAN overseas consumers in Singapore with using the QR codes of PayNow and NetsPay for cross-border payments.

Answer by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Senior Minister and Minister in charge of MAS:

1. The collaboration between PayNow and PromptPay will enable anyone who has registered for either service to send money directly from Singapore to Thailand, or vice versa, using just the recipient's mobile phone number. This experience is similar to how domestic PayNow transfers are made today.

2. QR code payments are not part of the PayNow-PromptPay collaboration. Should the collaboration be extended to include QR payments in future, we will ensure that the differentiation with existing QR code schemes such as PayNow QR and NETS QR is clearly communicated to prospective users.

***