The Association of Banks in Singapore and the Monetary Authority of Singapore clarified that the upcoming removal of PayNow nicknames, effective 6 June, was aimed at reducing impersonation scams, not at expanding compliance or traceability powers, following public commentary in The Straits Times on 28 May.
REGULATORY RESPONSE AND RATIONALE
The joint response by the industry body and the regulator addressed concerns raised after commentary questioned what the change would signal for PayNow users. The organisations framed the move as a targeted security measure intended to reduce a specific fraud vector, rather than a step toward broader supervisory or surveillance activity.
In its response, the Association of Banks in Singapore worked with the Monetary Authority of Singapore to set out the purpose behind the adjustment to PayNow, the national real time funds transfer service. The two bodies said impersonation scams in Singapore had doubled over the past year, with misuse of PayNow nicknames contributing to many cases.
The statement emphasised that the action was about preventing impersonation scams and was not designed to widen compliance or traceability functions. They rejected suggestions that the move would make financial flows more traceable, support broader enforcement measures or compromise privacy, noting that PayNow users are already identified by their financial institutions and that customer due diligence, transaction monitoring and suspicious transaction reporting are unchanged.
CONTEXT, BACKGROUND AND OPERATIONAL IMPACT
PayNow has become a central component of Singapore’s fast payments infrastructure, providing account-to-account transfers across banks and payments providers. The nickname feature allowed users to set an identifiable handle to ease incoming payments and to provide a human-friendly identifier alongside account numbers. That convenience also became a vector for fraudsters who mimicked trusted names and used similarity to the displayed nicknames to dupe payers.
The move is aimed at reducing impersonation scams while keeping full account names hidden from payers.
About 30% of PayNow users currently use nicknames and will be affected by the change. The change applies to retail users; instead of a nickname, payers will see selected letters of the recipient's registered account name before confirming a transfer.
The messaging from ABS and MAS framed the adjustment as a narrowly targeted fraud prevention step rather than a change to account monitoring or a broad compliance initiative.
The nickname removal is one of several anti-scam measures, alongside transaction limits, cooling-off periods and fraud monitoring.
Sources: Fintech News Singapore