Is Singapore next on the list of mobile payments leadership?

Is it time for Singapore to adopt a national mobile payments system?

Singapore has one of highest smart phone penetration rates of any country in the world. In fact, we are amongst the top five atlast count. We can no longer find a ‘normal’ mobile phone when we look at our three carriers outlets - they are all smartphones.

Singaporeans are also among the first to ‘upgrade’ their phones, and having the latest model always seems to be high on our wish list.

While we lead the world on mobile phone penetration, we are not very advanced when it comes to payments systems in Singapore. Some of our banks share ATMs, some don’t; but we still write a lot of cheques, and use plastic cards for everything.

We even punch small holes in pieces of paper, and tear according to the date and time of usage, in order to park our cars - how old is that technology? I can’t even count the number of loyalty, credit and transit cards that I have in my already burdened wallet.

If you have been to Korea or Japan, you will notice that most people can leave the house with just their mobile phones. They can pay for the taxi ride to the restaurant with their mobile phone, and even the restaurant bill itself. They do not need to carry a wallet as they have mobile wallets.

Koreans have had NFC (Near Field Communications) mobile phones for sometime now, which enable mobile payments to be carried out with ease. In Singapore, we are seeing a number of mobile phones entering, or about to enter, the market here. Most mobile phone manufacturers already offer NFC-enabled phones. There are even rumours that a certain fruit named company will be offering NFC in their phones very soon.

Hence, is it time for us to adopt a national system for mobile payments, so that we can leave home with just our phones?

I strongly believe it is. Well for one, I would love to be able to leave the house with just my phone and not my bulky wallet and phone. I never even seem to have the correct credit card in my wallet for the restaurant I am dinning in anyway. You know when they hand you the bill and say you get a discount for using a certain bank branded card.

But in the ideal world, I could have ten different cards linked to my mobile phone and then charge the bill to the ‘correct’ card.

Additionally, imagine being able to pay for my parking using my mobile phone, instead of having to tear and display a piece of paper in my dashboard. Mobile payments are also quicker for both the retailer and consumers. I personally do not enjoy queuing up to pay for something, but always end up in a line here in Singapore.

So, apart from being easier for consumers, quicker for the retailer to process transactions, it would put Singapore on the map as forward thinking when it comes to embracing new payment systems.

With the rise of NFC-enabled mobile phones, it is high time we set up a national mobile payments system so that we can get this going. We need to be able to ditch our physical wallets, retailers need to speed up transactions processing, and Singapore needs to show the world once again - its technology leadership. 

 Tarik Husain, Business Development Director, mCommerce, Sybase 365