Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) together with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) have announced that the cross-border QR code payment linkage between Malaysia and Singapore is finally live. The milestone is a long time coming as the cross-link effort was first announced way back in 2021.
In general, what this mean is that Malaysians can perform QR-based transactions in Singapore using their existing Malaysia-based bank apps or e-wallet by scanning the NETS QR code at the point of payment. Likewise, Singaporeans are able to make payments in Malaysia by scanning the DuitNow QR code with their existing banking app or e-wallet without any issues.
Here is the list of financial institutions, e-wallet operators, and payment gateway providers that already support cross-border QR transactions, as of today:
- Malaysian Banks: AmBank, CIMB, Hong Leong Bank, Maybank, Public Bank, UOB Malaysia.
- Malaysian E-Wallets: Boost, Touch ‘n Go eWallet.
- Singaporean Banks: DBS Bank, OCBC Bank, UOB.
- Payment Gateway Provider: Razer Merchant Services.
Prior to today’s announcement, BNM also successfully set up the cross-border QR payment linkage with Thailand back in mid-2021. Earlier this year, the same capability has also been established with Indonesia.
Meanwhile, BNM and MAS already looking forward to taking the cross-border payment linkage to the next level. In today’s joint announcement, both regulatory bodies stated that they are currently working to enable real-time fund transfers through Malaysia’s DuitNow and its Singaporean counterpart, PayNow.
Once the implementation is completed, consumers in both countries can transfer funds to each other just by using the recipient’s mobile phone number. This particular phase of cross-border payment integration is expected to be available by the end of this year.
