More than 20,000 stores and taxis to adopt mobile payments

Singapore still lags behind Philippines and Thailand in m-payments.

According to Nomura, Singapore has shown relatively less adoption of m-payments compared to markets like the Philippines/Thailand, although mobile penetration in the country is now 150%+. Contactless payment transactions are largely limited to transportation cards.

Here's more from Nomura:

• In October 2011, IDA Singapore appointed a consortium to build a SGD40mn interoperable NFC infrastructure for mobile payments as part of its part of 2015 Next Generation e-Payment Programme. The consortium includes SIngTel, M1, StarHub, EZ-Link, Citibank, DBS and Gemalto.

According to IDA, Gemalto would develop the infrastructure to enable payment products and cards of banks which will be stored in the customers' NFC-enabled mobile phones. This is expected to launch in mid-2012 and will cover ~20K retail points and taxis.

– Telcos in Singapore have undertaken various m-banking initiatives/trials. SingTel launched its mobile payment service, MobileP@y in 2010.
– In-line with IDA's announcement on NFC rollout, StarHub has also announced its NFC services in 2012 in partnership with DBS and EZ-Link. StarHub allows mobile recharge with its tie up with OCBC bank.
– M1 launched its mobile payment pilot using Visa payWave in partnership with CitiBank in April 2009 which enables purchase using Nokia 6212 handset.