The Association of Banks in Singapore will give away $500,000 as a reward to small businesses that sign up for PayNow, in a drive to encourage greater use of digital payments to help minimise community spread of Covid-19.
The first 20,000 small businesses to sign up for the service between now and July 31 will get a cash incentive of $25 each.
In addition, individuals using PayNow stand to win $100 each week from April 13 to June 21, when they make a PayNow transfer to businesses.
There will be 100 winners for each of the 10 weeks, in a giveaway amounting to $100,000.
Nine banks offer PayNow: DBS/POSB, OCBC Bank, UOB, Citibank, Standard Chartered, HSBC, Maybank, Bank of China, and Industrial and Commercial Bank.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore has said it expects financial institutions to provide as many basic financial services as possible through digital channels that will not require clients' physical presence in their premises.
Singapore's central bank yesterday urged individuals and businesses to use digital financial services and e-payments, and to minimise visits to the premises of financial institutions.
"This will contribute to the effectiveness of the elevated safe-distancing measures announced by the Ministry of Health last week," it added.
To date, more than two million individuals have registered to use PayNow, which was launched by the Association of Banks in Singapore. More than 120,000 business have also adopted PayNow Corporate and the Singapore Quick Response (QR) Code, the nation's unified payment code.
Meanwhile, Maybank Singapore has partnered with QR payment service provider Liquid Group to launch a solution that supports the adoption of QR payment via PayNow.
With its new QR Payment Terminal solution, merchants can generate a dynamic PayNow QR code for customers to pay via PayNow without having to key in the bill amount.
The terminal supports the mobile apps of all nine banks in Singapore that offer PayNow, said Maybank yesterday.
It also works for non-bank mobile payment apps, such as UnionPay QR, WeChat and GrabPay, among others.
THE BUSINESS TIMES
• Additional reporting by The Straits Times.
