A new body has been set up here to promote the fast-developing progress of e-payments.

The Payments Council body comprises 20 senior people from banks, payment service providers, businesses and trade associations, said the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) yesterday.

The members include DBS chief executive Piyush Gupta, OCBC CEO Samuel Tsien and United Overseas Bank CEO Wee Ee Cheong, with MAS managing director Ravi Menon acting as chairman.

The MAS said in a statement that the council is among several initiatives to promote e-payment.

These include overseeing seamless payment solutions like PayNow, supporting new unified point-of-sale terminals and introducing new legislation for consumer interests. It added: "The Payments Council will encourage collaboration within the payments industry... develop strategies to drive the adoption of e-payments, and advise and make recommendations to the MAS on related policies."

Mr Menon said Singapore has several good e-payment solutions, but they have to be better integrated with "individual and business-use cases so that more people will adopt e-payments".

The MAS also released a summary of its responses for a public consultation on the new council.

It had said: "The ecosystem is no longer neatly delineated along the lines of stored value and cross-border payments, nor between physical and electronic payments.

"There are also new threats to consumer confidence in the payment system which are not limited to systemic or system-wide risks."

In an earlier report, KPMG noted: "Payment service providers around the world have been subject to cyber attacks, leaving users vulnerable to personal data leaks.

"The increasing complexity and globalisation of the payments ecosystem have also led to reduced transparency for the user, as various fees and foreign exchange charges could be embedded into users' statements with minimal explanation prior to the purchase."