In its effort to go cashless in the future, the Singaporean government will incorporate ways to make the process inclusive so that some segments of society, including the lower-income and the elderly, are not left out.
Janil Puthucheary, Minister-in-charge of the Government Technology Agency of Singapore, said, “The
Government will assess what barriers are present and address them in a way that doesn’t stereotype, automatically exclude and make the assumption that people cannot get on board.”
Speaking about the implementation of cashless transactions, he said, “The Government is working to ensure that the process is made cheaper, easier and more convenient so that those groups will be included. This would involve collaborating with the private sector to look at issues involving the design of products, delivery of services as well as the underlying infrastructure.”
Experts in Singapore have opined that those in low-income households might not even have bank accounts, while there are elderly people who use cash as their sole mode of payment.
Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore, has highlighted during the National Day Rally that the country lags behind other cities, including those in China, when it came to e-payments.
The Prime Minister has noted that credit cards and cash have become a rare sight in those places, with the favoured payment modes instead being WeChat Pay and Alipay.
Singapore officers have announced that they are looking to introduce cashless payments on a large scale at hawker centres, coffee shops and other heartland businesses. Even the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and TransitLink had also announced previously that transactions on public transport would go cashless by 2020.
