More Than Half of All Hawker Stalls in S’pore Now Offer E-Payments

If you ever need an example of how fast technology spread in Singapore, here’s one for you:

Back in early December, it was reported that almost half of the 18,000 hawker stalls in Singapore are accepting cashless payments, which means it’s about 9,000 hawker stalls.

Fast forward two months later and the number has jumped to 10,000.

More Than Half of All Hawker Stalls in S’pore Now Offer E-Payments

On 19 Feb 2021, Enterprise Singapore (ESG) revealed that more than half of the hawker stalls in Singapore now accept cashless payments.

If that’s not impressive enough, it was added that transaction volume and value has quadrupled from Jun 2020.

In Jan 2021, the volume of cashless transactions at hawker stalls crossed 1.2 million.

Similarly, the value of transactions also crossed S$14 million.

In short, cashless payments at hawker centres, despite what many believed, is catching on fast.

And it’s all thanks to the Hawker Go Digital programme.

Efforts To Digitalise Hawker Centres

The Hawkers Go Digital programme aims to encourage 18,000 stallholders to pick up cashless payment systems by June this year.

Stallholders will receive S$300 e-payment when they reach 20 cashless transactions per month for up to 5 months.

So far, more than 7,400 stallholders have been paid the bonus, ESG says.

The period of spending has been extended as well to 31 May 2021 to accommodate those who have not adopted e-payment yet.

That’s not the only programme to get extended.

Scan, Pay, Win has also been extended to 20 Apr 2021.

The lucky draw, which is valid for payments made through banking apps like DBS PayLah! or e-wallets like GrabPay and Singtel Dash, will let diners win up to S$4,888 per month when they pay at participating hawker stalls.

Improvement To Cashless System

If you’ve read our article on how hawkers got scammed with a screenshot, you’ll know that some hawkers didn’t use the system properly because, during rush hour, it can be a hassle to juggle managing the payment and fulfilling orders.

Well, improvements to the NETSBiz app has been announced.

Some of the changes include making the font bigger, using colour to highlight the latest transaction and an audio chime loud enough to be heard in a noisy coffee shop.

The improvements are planned for Mar 2021 and more details will be announced later.

Next time, all you have to do is to bring your mobile phone with you when you go out and you’re able to survive the entire day liao. Or even the entire month.

Featured Image: 2p2play / Shutterstock.com