The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) have on Thursday announced that two new payments solutions will be launched in mid-2025 to support the transition to e-payments for both corporate and retail cheque users.

These solutions will complement Singapore’s existing suite of e-payment modes, including PayNow, FAST, GIRO and MEPS+, MAS said in a statement.

To allow corporates sufficient time to adopt these new solutions, MAS and ABS have also announced a one-year extension of the deadline to cease processing of corporate cheques.

To provide greater convenience to corporates and individuals, ABS, in partnership with the Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs), will be launching the new EDP and EDP+ solutions in mid-2025 to address the use cases of post-dated payments and transactions requiring greater certainty of payment respectively.

Both EDP and EDP+ will be accessible via digital banking platforms, and will leverage PayNow to allow payers to identify payees conveniently when making payments via either solution.

MAS encourages all cheque users to adopt these e-payment alternatives once they are made available.

MAS and banks will also extend the deadline to cease processing of corporate cheques by an additional year.

MAS had previously announced that corporate cheques would be eliminated and that all banks in Singapore would stop issuing new corporate cheque books in 2025.

The authority and the banks have assessed that more time should be given to corporates to familiarize themselves with new and existing e-payment modes, as well as for corporates to shift from cheques to EDP and EDP+.

In view of this, while banks will stop issuing new cheque books to corporates by 31 December 2025, the deadline to cease processing of corporate cheques will be extended to 31 December 2026.

Corporate cheque payees should present their cheques for clearing well before 31 December 2026, to ensure that their cheques can be processed before the deadline.

Retail cheques will continue to be available, along with cashier’s orders and USD cheques for both corporate and retail customers.

Major retail banks in Singapore will continue to waive cheque service fees for seniors.

Details on the transition plan from cheques to e-payments, as well as proposed initiatives that focus on addressing the needs and concerns of corporates and individuals, can be found in the public consultation paper released on Thursday by MAS.

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