Enhanced QR payment scheme to expand in S'pore and globally

SGQR+ rolls out to 24,000 points locally; roamQR launches to facilitate regional links

- Claire Huang

The enhanced Singapore Quick Response Code Scheme (SGQR+) is going places, with local and overseas merchants standing to gain from the improvements.

Local payment services group Nets is rolling out the commercialisation of SGQR+ in the country, while Singapore-headquartered fintech Liquid Group looks to take SGQR+ global with the launch of roamQR on Nov 7.

Under SGQR+, merchants receiving customer payments through QR codes need to deal with only one issuer, which is Nets.

Through Nets, merchants can then access 17 other local and international payment schemes such as DBS PayLah, OCBC Digital, UOB TMRW, Alipay and PromptPay.

Before SGQR+, merchants who wanted to accept a range of payment schemes had to deal with the different financial institutions themselves. The acceptance of payment schemes was also not uniform across merchants.

SGQR+ will be rolled out island-wide to 24,000 acceptance points or static QR points at retail and food and beverage (F&B) outlets. It will also be extended to the hawker segment, which is separate from retail and F&B categories.