SINGAPORE — More than half of Singapore’s hawker stalls now offer e-payments, with transactions last month growing four times since June.

This amounts to 10,000 stallholders, Enterprise Singapore (ESG), the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and Singapore Digital Office (SDO) said on Friday (Feb 19) in a joint media release.

Transaction volume and value for January this year also crossed the 1.2 million and S$14 million mark respectively for the first time.

This is a four-fold increase compared to June 2020, when the Hawkers Go Digital programme was launched. More than 7,400 stallholders have also since received the e-payment bonus, they added.

The Hawkers Go Digital programme aims to reach out to and encourage a total of 18,000 stallholders to adopt the Unified e-Payment Solution by June 2021. Stallholders will receive a S$300 e-payment bonus for up to five months for every month which they achieve at least 20 transactions.

To provide more time for those who have not adopted e-payment to make use of the e-payment bonus, the eligibility period has been extended from Dec 31, 2020 to May 31, 2021.

“The bonus complements the Government’s efforts to help stallholders adopt e-payment solutions to improve their productivity and to encourage the sustained use of e-payment,” the agencies said in the media release.

Stallholders will get monthly instalments of S$300, if they fulfil at least 20 transactions of at least S$1 each month by May 31 this year. All applicable bonus will still be paid by Jun 30, 2021.

ESG, IMDA and SDO also said the Hawkers Go Digital Scan Pay Win lucky draw campaign has been extended to Apr 20, 2021 to encourage more consumers to support stallholders by using e-payment for their purchases. The campaign was first launched in November last year.

IMDA and SDO added that they have collaborated with NETS to enhance the features of the NETSBiz app to make it easier for stallholders to track their payment transactions.

The enhancements, which will be progressively rolled out from March this year, will include a bigger font size to make it easier for hawkers to see the transaction from a distance.

The app will also use colour to highlight the latest transaction and a distinct audio alert for incoming transactions that will be loud enough to be heard in a hawker environment.

NETS will announce more details closer to the start of the roll-out.

Speaking to reporters at the Whampoa Drive Food Centre and Market on Friday, Minister for Communications and Information S Iswaran said the programme is getting good reception and traction amongst hawkers, but "we need to continue to work and respond to their needs". 

He said that the hawkers have observed that generally a younger demographic is using the QR code.

"For the older residents, some of them use and some don't. And that is where we have our Digital Hubs, like the one here in Whampoa Community Centre," he said, adding that the agencies, with the help of Digital Ambassadors, hope to reach out to more residents, and at the same time, respond to feedback to further improve the service.

"If we can proceed on this trajectory, then we would have achieved a significant part of our goal, which is to bring digitalisation to all parts of our economy and our society."

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