• New Electronic Deferred Payment (EDP) solutions to be launched in mid-2025 to support transition to e-payments
• Deadline to cease processing of corporate cheques extended by one year to end-2026
• Retail cheques, cashier’s orders and USD cheques continue to be available

Singapore, 5 December 2024... The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) today announced that two new payments solutions will be launched in mid-2025 to support the transition to e-payments for both corporate and retail cheque usersCorporate cheques refer to cheques issued by body corporates, entities or businesses. Retail cheques refer to cheques issued by individuals.. These solutions will complement Singapore's existing suite of e-payment modes, including PayNow, FAST, GIRO and MEPS+. To allow corporates sufficient time to adopt these new solutions, MAS and ABS have also announced a one-year extension of the deadline to cease processing of corporate cheques.

New solutions to support cheque users in transitioning to e-payments

2 To provide greater convenience to corporates and individuals, ABS, in partnership with the Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs)These banks are Citibank, DBS Bank, HSBC, Maybank, OCBC Singapore, Standard Chartered Bank and UOB., will be launching the new EDP and EDP+ solutionsThe main difference between EDP and EDP+ lies in when funds are deducted from the payer’s account. For EDP, funds are deducted upon presentment by the payee, while for EDP+, funds are deducted immediately upon issuance. For more details on EDP and EDP+, please refer to the consultation paper. in mid-2025 to address the use cases of post-dated payments and transactions requiring greater certainty of payment respectively. Both EDP and EDP+ will be accessible via digital banking platforms, and will leverage PayNow to allow payers to identify payees conveniently when making payments via either solution. MAS encourages all cheque users to adopt these e-payment alternatives once they are made available. 

Extended timeline for processing SGD corporate cheques

3  MAS and banks will extend the deadline to cease processing of corporate cheques by an additional year.

4  MAS had previously announced that corporate cheques would be eliminated and that all banks in Singapore would stop issuing new corporate cheque books in 2025. MAS and the banks have assessed that more time should be given to corporates to familiarise themselves with new and existing e-payment modes, as well as for corporates to shift from cheques to EDP and EDP+. In view of this, while banks will stop issuing new cheque books to corporates by 31 December 2025, the deadline to cease processing of corporate cheques will be extended to 31 December 2026.

5  Corporate cheque payees should present their cheques for clearing well before 31 December 2026, to ensure that their cheques can be processed before the deadline.

Public consultation on roadmap to sunset corporate cheques and transition plan for retail cheques

6  Retail cheques will continue to be available, along with cashier’s orders and USD cheques for both corporate and retail customers.

7  Major retail banks in Singapore will continue to waive cheque service fees for seniorsSeniors who are at age 60 (or above) as of 31 December 2025 will remain eligible for the waiver of cheque services fees after 31 December 2025..

8  Details on the transition plan from cheques to e-payments, as well as proposed initiatives that focus on addressing the needs and concerns of corporates and individuals, can be found in the public consultation paper released today by MAS. MAS invites interested parties to submit their feedback by 17 January 2025.

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