I read and re-read the reports about the Prime Minister’s twitter, where he explained that Singapore’s e-payments infrastructure is fractured, and it is high-time to build a system that is more efficient and universal.

Memories came rushing through on the times when I was immensely proud of our payment systems in Singapore. Lest anyone forgets, we HAD one of the best systems in the world in the 1990s. As a payment system vendor, I remember we used to host visitors from countries around the world who want a view of how a world-class payment system should look like.

We were a model, we were what other countries aspired to be. While the Americans were (and still are) struggling to get out of their expensive cheque payment and clearing system, our NETS or debit card system was well-oiled and worked like clockwork since 1985.

You see, Singapore leapfrogged from the rest of the world in the 1980s. While the rest of the developed world was still using the checking system, Singapore thought otherwise, and completely leaped over using cheques as payment at the retail level (supermarkets etc), and instead, we implemented NETS, or EFTPOS system.

And so, in the 1990s and even early 2000s, we were a textbook success of how payment systems should be to the world. Kudos to the folks at MAS and MOF in those days for their foresight.

But technology is always unforgiving. No amount of our past successes will ever guarantee our future. And so this is how it is like in payment systems as well. I saw first hand how interesting and breathtaking this can be.

In 1994, our team visited Mongolia with the aim to implement an ATM and smart card (or IC card) systems there. To our big surprise, people were still barter trading and they had no clue what money was. The first thing we did was not to showcase our payment system solutions, but instead, we talked about what M1, M2 and M3 were. Today, if you visit Mongolia, you will notice they still do not use money, but instead use their IC card (or smart card) for their transactions. They completely leap frogged using cash as a payment medium.

That same year, I was invited to Hanoi Vietnam together with a team from AT&T to present to the Minister of Finance and the executives of major banks on ATM implementation. As I passed through the vast plantation from the airport to my hotel, I recalled the many mine warnings I had heard over the media.

On that trip, the hotel attendant had to look through a printout of blacklisted cards to authorize my payment when I used my credit card.

In order not to grapple with the mines situation in Vietnam, our proposal to the Vietnam Finance minister then was to use satellite to connect up the ATMs and other banking communications.

Today, satellite is indeed frequently used in Vietnam to link up for infrastructure, communication and definitely banking purposes. Again, they leapfrogged from using landlines.

Back to Singapore today… our e-payment system is recognized as being fractured. While I do see this as true to some extent, it is still hard to feel the pride in me punctured. And although I can rationalize why and how it come to this, I believe the more important question is how we can move forward.

Maybe someone already has a solution to this. Maybe some companies have some state-of-the-art solution somewhere that can be implemented. But here’s the thing I think will be the biggest obstacles. Pride and people.

Yes, pride. Singaporeans are too proud to put aside their differences to listen and work on radical solutions, especially if these come from ‘less developed’ or ‘less established’ sources.

Next, Singaporeans and Singapore companies are too quick to think up the selfish benefits they can obtain directly before they put the country’s needs first. It is like always looking for the government to feed them first, instead of thinking what they can do for the country. Maybe this is the price we pay for having a paternalistic government.

As for those vetting solutions and proposals in the government agencies, perhaps it pays to have people who have in depth knowledge of the industry and some entrepreneurial spirit rather than those who just want to be ‘right’ and protect their existence and their jobs. If this goes on, then great ideas will always be buried and ideas from big corporations will grab attention. We know that the best ideas always come from fresh and young minds, and the millennials and Gen Z should not be overshadowed.

Perhaps the merchant discount rate (MDR) or credit card fees needs to be reviewed, perhaps the devices have to be redesigned and rethought, perhaps even the switches (like NETS and use of VISA and regional networks) need a revamp. Perhaps the government or MAS need to lead or consult the industry to recraft how we look at e-payment with the game now changed from the 1990s. Perhaps, instead of just looking within the country, we need to think about how we can work with our friends in the region to build a more solid e-payment infrastructure regional wide that is scalable and more affordable. Perhaps we need to think of how to reown our transactions. Perhaps we need to do all these before it is too late.

For a developed country to leapfrog, it means to put aside the individual self-esteem, to forget about our legacy systems, to forget about our past glory, to put aside short term individual or company financial gains and go back to the drawing board and start from scratch, to redo a blue print.

Is it possible? Of course. We have done it before. It is now not a good-to-have but a must-have for the survival of good organizations and good jobs in the country to build a world-class e-payment system. Payment lubricates the economy, and not only must we build an cutting-edge system, we must do it with a revenge.

I see recognizing our e-payment system as fractured a rare opportunity to emerge not only stronger but a seachange from the way we do things, not only in Singapore, but in the region and perhaps the world. I have so much hope.

Singapore has always been a miracle. Our ancestors have shown us how to perform the impossibles. We must continue to be unique and incredible, put aside our need for individual short term gains not only in the hope of transforming our e-payment system from a fractured one to a world-class one in record time, but in the way we grow from a country on steroids to one that is truly developed from the inside out, and then spread the same to our neighbours.

We are a people of miracles. We have also always been a ‘we’ people, and once the ‘I’ in us fade into obscurity, I know that we will be world-class again within and around our country, and fractured systems will no longer be a feature.

FB post by : Pamela Lim