The Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF) was packed with many interesting and innovative FinTech solutions. For retail consumers in Singapore, one thing stood out – how innovative payment solutions that were already flourishing in other parts of the world, like the US and China, haven’t come to our shores.
Spanning all six halls at the Singapore EXPO, this year’s edition of the SFF previewed some interesting and innovative payment solutions – with many already in the works or likely to be rolled out here in the near future.
#1 Pay by Palm
One of the most innovative solutions at the Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF) 2024 was the Tencent Palm solution.
As its name suggests, we get to pay by linking our palm, which we learned is as unique as our fingerprints, to make payments.
While chatting with the SFF community, we also realised that paying by palm solves some hassle that other seemingly more advanced solution has problems with. For example, facial recognition or iris technology will have problems identifying the actual payer – rather than the people around him/her.
While novel to a Singaporean, we also learned that this technology has already been rolled out in the US with Amazon, and obviously in China with Tencent.
Tencent has partnered with Visa to bring Palm Payment to Singapore. Hopefully, Singapore buyers will get to pay with our palms soon!
#2 Manicure (With A Microchip)
German-based Infineon Technologies had a crowded booth at the SFF 2024 – where they were showcasing a novel payment solution using a microchip on your fingernails.
The use-case here is for events and locations where users may not have to carry around their wallets or phones, in case they get lost or wet. So, you can pay with just the chip on your fingertips during an occasion – such as beach party, music festivals, outdoor festivals and even sporting events.
While this solution is not available in Singapore yet, the Infineon team at SFF says they are working to try to port it into Singapore soon. Hopefully, we’ll start seeing more people paying with their nails!
#3 Thumbprint
While thumbprints were phased out years ago in the banking industry, it’s made a big comeback in the form of digital thumbprints. Today, many of us access important banking apps and even Singpass using our thumbprint.
Pretty soon, we may be approving credit card transactions with our thumbprint too.
Separately, Infineon was also showcasing another security feature with its fingerprint enabled credit cards. This is an added security feature, scanning your fingerprint on the credit card itself when making card payments.
#4 Pay Using Wearables
Wearable technology has been around for a while. The main use case is obviously in sports and healthcare – to keep track of your physical condition and achievements during sports, and monitor your personal well-being in the background.
While knowing how far you’ve run, how long you took and your heart rate can be useful in measuring your performance over time, there’s no reason to stop there. We can also use a range of wearables to pay for the things.
The future of cashless payments doesn’t need to end at cards and mobile phones, it will soon be commonplace for payments to be made via watches, wristbands, and even jewellery like rings and bracelets.
WearToPay, member of Japan-based Paycloud Group, was one of the companies we saw at the SFF.
It provides contactless payment options using stylish wearables, as well as integrated fitness tracking and payment capabilities.
#5 Paying With Crypto
Some of us many already know solutions where we can pay for purchasing using crypto, but, it’s hardly a mainstream payment method.
Developed by NASDAQ-listed CompoSecure, Arculus was another innovative FinTech at the SFF. Arculus provides an easy-to-use and ultra-secure way to keep your digital assets safe. The Arculus Card and App allows you to buy, swap, send, and receive currencies.
#6 Purpose Bound Money
At the SFF, we also learned that LTA has piloted a blockchain based conditional payment solution from OCBC to make payments to its contractors.
In this particular instance, the construction sector is in focus. Contracts in this sector are usually large and more efficient payments will help contractors and vendors across the entire value chain. At the same time, the disbursed money will also need to be used for the correct reasons – to pay for the project.
OCBC’s blockchain-based payment solution will automatically pay contractors once the smart contracts verify that the conditions are met.
This is a great use-case for B2B payments, especially for larger contracts with long verification processes – may be the beginning for such payment types.
#7 SGQR+
We also caught up with the folks at NETS – to learn more about its SGQR+ solution. Especially for consumer facing businesses, this could be a lifesaver (and time-saver).
Modelled after the Hawkers Go Digital model, NETS SGQR+ acts as a master acquirer, and enables businesses to accept payment from all 18 payment schemes through a single SGQR label.
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