Here's why Singapore is all set for the digital future

Singapore is the world's hotbed of digital adoption.

In a study that measures the progress of 50 countries toward digital commerce, Singapore takes the top spot as the most ready to meet the challenges and opportunities of the digital future, with infrastructure and policies in place to aid the island nation's rapid pace of digital adoption.

This is according to the Digital Evolution Index (DEI) conducted by The Fletcher School at Tufts University.

Many consumers in Singapore have embraced a digital lifestyle, showing a readiness to use technology to make their lives easier, and presenting great opportunities to support digital innovation.

The Index's findings reflect public confidence in the ability of technology to deliver safe and secure transactions. Embedded computer chips in plastic cards and digital verification technologies such as tokenisation create new opportunities for a simplified and secure payment experience.

Technology and innovation are creating game-changing possibilities for payment card safety and security that were once unimaginable, ushering in a new era for protecting and verifying transactions without encumbering the consumer shopping process.

Singapore is also a leader in payment security initiatives – becoming one of the few countries in the world to have put in place a comprehensive set of security measures for payment cards. In recent years, banks in Singapore have taken several measures:

-- Migrating magnetic stripe cards to the more secure EMV chip cards;

-- Implementing usage of the One-Time Password to authenticate customers before online transactions with participating merchants are approved;

-- Sending SMS/email notifications to customers each time a card transaction is made or a pre-approved limit is exceeded; and

-- Securing activation procedures for new and replacement cards.

Security measures in place for payment cards in Singapore are robust by international standards, the Monetary Authority of Singapore reports, but card customers in all countries should nonetheless take the necessary precautions when using their cards.

Safety and security are at the basis of emerging e-commerce markets. The study places Singapore (#1) and Hong Kong (#3) in two of the top three countries prime to welcome the next billion Internet users thanks to their advanced, but still growing, digital economies.

Sweden (#2), the United Kingdom (#4), and Switzerland (#5) round out the top five, among the 50 countries measured.

China, Malaysia, and Thailand ranked as the top three fastest moving digital economies, a result of their rapidly increasing Internet and smartphone population. Six of the top 10 in this category are Asian countries.

The study puts Singapore at the top of its "Stand Out" category of countries with highly evolved digital ecosystems with the capability to fast-track innovation to maintain high levels of digital transactions for sophisticated domestic consumers.

Stand Out countries do not merely have highly developed digital ecosystems, they are also continuing their upward trajectories. It is difficult for countries to sustain high improvement rates at this level; it requires continual innovation and market expansion.

The study cites Singapore, South Korea, and Hong Kong as consistently pushing the frontiers of digital readiness.