SINGAPORE - By June, a Government-backed initiative will be expanded to allow banks to stop requiring physical documents such as photocopies of one's NRIC.

Bank customers with OCBC, UOB, DBS and Standard Chartered Bank can give consent for their personal data such as address and name to be pulled digitally from MyInfo, a government-backed digital vault of citizens' personal data launched in May last year (2016).

For starters, this will be available in a pilot for citizens to open bank accounts, said Second Minister for Finance Lawrence Wong during the debate on his ministry's budget in Parliament on Tuesday (Mar 7).

Ms Foo Mee Har (West Coast GRC) had asked how the Government is leading the way in digital transformation.

Mr Wong, who is also National Development Minister, added that more than 150 government digital services will be linked to MyInfo by 2018.

"One inconvenience that citizens sometimes face is the need to submit the same data repeatedly to different government agencies, and provide supporting documents to verify their data," said Mr Wong.

MyInfo now pulls residents' data - such as name, NRIC number and registered address - from seven public agencies.

These include the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore and the Urban Redevelopment Authority.

The data in the consolidated repository - which has 100,000 citizen sign-ups so far - can be used for a handful of e-services provided by nine agencies now.

The services include applying for or renewing work permits for domestic helpers, and applying for public housing.