Today the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced that its FAST and PayNow services can now be used directly by eligible non-bank financial institutions (NFIs). To participate, companies have to be licensed as major payment institutions. MAS first announced plans to do so two years ago and follows in the footsteps of the UK and India, which do the same.
This means to top up e-wallets, users don’t necessarily have to have a bank account. Hence it’s possible to top up one e-wallet from another e-wallet without using a bank as an intermediary.
“Consumers who may not have ready access to debit or credit cards to fund their e-wallets will now have the option to do so directly through their bank accounts,” said Ravi Menon, Managing Director of MAS. “Our vision to enable complete real-time payments interoperability will now become a reality.”
This might also be handy for cryptocurrency firms with the appropriate licenses.
