New payments entity, automated verification tool to boost Singapore’s status as finance hub

Singapore on Feb 12 announced through various groups a new payments entity and an automated solution to verify bills of lading, as it moves to strengthen its position as a global finance hub.

A new entity will be set up to consolidate the administration and governance of Singapore’s national payment schemes such as Fast, PayNow and SGQR, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and The Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) said in a joint statement.

Such schemes are currently administered and governed by MAS, ABS, the Singapore Clearing House Association and the Infocomm Media Development Authority.

Consolidation under a single entity will strengthen the governance of these schemes and enable greater payments resilience and innovation, said MAS managing director Chia Der Jiun.

ABS chairman Piyush Gupta, noting that the new payments entity will provide a springboard for payments technology, said: “ABS and member banks look forward to working closely with the industry to achieve Singapore’s goal as a smart financial centre.”

The entity will be governed by senior representatives from MAS and the financial services sector, who will provide strategic direction to the entity’s management team.

To develop strategies, industry committees will be formed under the entity to engage banks, payment services providers and key user groups such as industry and business associations.

Operations and scheme rules of the national payment schemes will remain unchanged under the new entity. More details on the entity name, governance structure and board composition will be revealed later in 2025, said MAS and ABS.

On the same day, an automated solution for banks in Singapore to verify the authenticity of bills of lading (BL) was rolled out.

A bill of lading, issued by a carrier to the shipper, lists the goods being transported, the destination as well as the name of the shipper and consignee. It is typically used as a supporting document to apply for trade financing.

The solution – called BL genuineness check – will allow banks to retrieve data points from carriers quickly and automatically, instead of via a manual process where banks call or send e-mails to verify information, said the Trade Finance Registry (TFR) and Singapore Trade Data Exchange (SGTraDex).

The TFR was set up in June 2023 by ABS to support transparency and integrity in trade finance.

Banks will submit relevant trade document data points to the TFR for duplicate financing checks and BL verification. SGTraDex will then route a request for information to carrier data aggregators.

Through the process, relevant carrier information is rapidly retrieved from carriers and sent back to TFR for the bank to complete the verification check.

The current manual process for BL verification may take up to three working days. With this new solution, banks can expect to shorten the turnaround time to within one working day, Mrs Ong-Ang Ai Boon, director at ABS, told The Straits Times.

The BL genuineness check builds on the duplicate financing check capability that aims to combat double financing fraud by allowing banks to share information to verify if a transaction has already been funded before agreeing to finance it.

As the solution will retrieve information directly from the carriers, this makes it less likely to be compromised by middlemen with fraudulent intentions, said Mrs Ong-Ang.

About 70 per cent of TFR participant banks, including major regional and international banks, will tap this solution, said ABS.

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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