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FAST, Singapore’s real-time national payments system is live on VocaLink/BCSIS

VocaLink, the UK-based international payment systems provider, has delivered a real-time payments platform, FAST, for the Singapore market. The new platform has been modelled on the UK’s Faster Payments Service which has securely processed over three billion Faster Payments in just five years.

The new Singapore payments system is backed by 14 leading financial institutions in the sovereign city state. With FAST, businesses and consumers in Singapore are able to electronically transfer funds between accounts held at participating financial institutions in seconds – instead of the two to three business days it used to take. As part of the agreement with the Association of Banks in Singapore, VocaLink has partnered with BCS Information Systems Pte Ltd (BCSIS), the Asian payments solution provider to deliver this service.

Other systems in Asia-Pacific 

Vocalink and their partner BCIS expect similar services across Asia-Pacific:

  • David Yates, Chief Executive Officer at VocaLink, said: “Demand for the Faster Payments Service in the UK has grown every year since its launch in 2008 as more consumers and businesses appreciate the benefits of real-time payments. We now have ambitious plans for rolling out our Immediate Payments technology across the globe. The successful launch of FAST in Singapore in partnership with BCSIS is therefore a significant milestone in delivering this strategy and we expect to reach many other territories in the years ahead.”
  • Ricky Lim, Managing Director at BCSIS, commented:“There is now enormous scope to grow digital services associated with the scheme, with a particular emphasis on mobile payments. Singapore is an early adopter of real-time payment capabilities and we expect other countries in the region to take up this innovative technology in the coming years.”

The Australian Payments Clearing Association have adopted plans to launch a real-time, low value payments system in Australia in 2016. Other countries in Asia-Pacific are also looking at developing similar systems.

Priming mobile e-commerce

There are already immediate payment systems in South Africa and Mexico, and USA is, finally, seriously studying how to develop an immediate payment system, see. This is a global development, over the next 5-10 years corporate treasurers can expect all the major economies will introduce some form of immediate payment solution for domestic payments. This will drive mobile e-commerce.

Mobile e-commerce usage is currently growing at unprecedented rates without in countries without a domestic immediate payments solution. In countries where such systems are available, e.g. Faster Payments in UK, it opens up many more opportunities for innovative new services and products such as Barclays Pingit. In March 2014, the five-year-old Faster Payments system grew year-on-year overall by 19%, while ‘Single immediate payments’ many of which a initiated by mobile devices grew by 31%.


CTMfile take: Ignore mobile e-commerce at your peril. Businesses and markets are being transformed by mobile, how are you going to ride the mobile e-commerce tiger?

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