Written Reply to Parliamentary Question on Whether Scams Have Been Perpetrated Since the Integration of Singapore’s PayNow and Thailand’s PromptPay in April 2021

Question:

Mr Melvin Yong Yik Chye: To ask the Minister for Home Affairs (a) since the integration of Singapore’s PayNow and Thailand’s PromptPay in April 2021, whether there have been any scams perpetrated which made use of this real-time cross-border payment system to transmit money; and (b) what safeguards are there to prevent vulnerable victims from falling prey to such scams.

Answer:

Mr K Shanmugam, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law:

1.   The integration between Singapore’s PayNow and Thailand’s PromptPay started in April 2021.

2.   Within Singapore, as of September 2021, there have been no reported cases of scams perpetrated through this integration. However, MHA is aware of at least one case taking place outside Singapore, where an e-commerce scam used the PayNow-PromptPay integration to have the money transferred to the scammer.

3.   The same safeguards imposed for domestic PayNow transfers apply to cross-border transfers made via the PayNow-PromptPay linkage. These include the use of online banking credentials to access PayNow-PromptPay services, and customisable limits on daily transfer amounts. In addition, there is a system-imposed daily cap of S$1,000. Users are also able to check the identity of the recipient before making the transfer, after keying in the mobile phone number of the recipient.

4.   As scammers based overseas may try to exploit advancements in cross-border integration of banking services to get their victims to directly transfer monies overseas, we urge users to practise healthy skepticism in verifying the authenticity of the transactions, make full use of the safeguards available, as well as to pause, check and confirm before effecting the transfer.