Project XBY

East Asia & Pacific · GDP rank #26

Singapore

SG · SGD @ 0.7815/USD

Tab 02

Consumer payments

How consumers actually pay: the share of cash, the stock and flow of cards, the scheme split at checkout, which mobile wallets matter, and how broadly POS acceptance reaches.

Every figure is authored against a named publisher — click the ⓘ anywhere to open the source panel with the underlying URL and access date.

Cash share of POS volume

12%

Cash share of POS value

5%

Debit-card penetration

100% of adults

Credit-card penetration

96% of adults

Payment mix

Cash vs. non-cash

The authored corpus for this country carries a single cash figure; the remainder is reported as a pooled non-cash bucket. See the card and wallet sections for the break-down within that bucket.

12%Cash

Share of POS

  • Cash12%
  • Non-cash (cards + wallets + A2A)88%

Cash behaviour

Trend
declining
Context
Cash share among lowest in Asia. NETS + PayNow + card + closed-loop transit leave minimal cash use outside hawker and wet-market informality.

Source · Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)

Scheme share

Which networks clear the card volume

Scheme share is the split of general-purpose card purchase volume — not issuance, not count of cards. A high domestic share (e.g. UnionPay, RuPay, ELO) means a large share of card flow never touches a global scheme.

NETS (Network for Electronic Transfers) is Singapore's domestic scheme; operates ATM + POS + NETS ClickPay + NETS QR.

Share of card volume

  • Visa43%
  • Mastercard34%
  • Nets18%
  • Amex4%
  • Union Pay1%

Debit transactions · 2024

670.0M

Active debit cards

9.9M

Credit transactions · 2024

830.0M

Active credit cards

13.4M

Mobile wallets

Where wallets actually land

User counts are the best single scalar for wallet reach, but they understate usage intensity in markets where one super-app carries multi-digit trillions of renminbi or rupees. For flow, see the rails tab.

Active users

  • GrabPay3.9M

    super-app wallet

  • DBS PayLah!2.9M

    bank wallet

  • Apple Pay3.5M

    device wallet

  • ShopeePay2.0M

    super-app wallet

Notable wallets

GrabPay

super-app wallet

Operator · Grab Financial Group

Grab Holdings

DBS PayLah!

bank wallet

Operator · DBS Bank

DBS Bank

Apple Pay

device wallet

Operator · Apple

Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)

ShopeePay

super-app wallet

Operator · Sea Group

Sea Group

Acceptance

POS terminals
180.0k
POS per million people
30.1k
QR acceptance
SGQR unified standard since 2018; mandatory for all merchant acquirers.

Source · Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)