Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has announced a linkage of Malaysia’s DuitNow and Singapore’s PayNow yesterday. In the future, Malaysians and Singaporeans can transfer money to each other using just a mobile number.

According to a joint statement by BNM and MAS, the linkage will be carried out in few phases where the first phase will be launched in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2022. The linkage will allow a seamless transaction for the high volume of remittance between Malaysia and Singapore, which reached RM4.2 billion in 2020.

On top of that, the linkage between both real-time payment systems will allow users to make payments at retail stores by scanning DuitNow QR or NETS QR codes. This would mean that Malaysians can use their DuitNow on their mobile app to make payments by scanning the NETS QR in Singapore. Similarly, Singaporeans can scan the DuitNow QR code with their mobile app to make payments in Malaysia.

Following the launch, BNM and MAS would progressively expand the DuitNow- PayNow linkage to incorporate a wider range of features and participants.

The DuitNow-PayNow linkage represents another significant milestone in the history of close ties between Malaysia and Singapore

– Bank Negara Malaysia & Monetary Authority of Singapore

Meanwhile, BNM has previously worked with the Bank of Thailand (BOT) since mid-2020 for seamless cross-border payments between Malaysia and Thailand. 

The concept is similar whereby Thai users can now scan the DuitNow QR codes using their mobile app to make payments in Malaysia. However, Malaysians can only make QR payments in Thailand in Q4 2021, later this year. 

(Image source: DuitNow, Full Stack, PBe)