Monetary Authority of Singapore clarifies PayNow nickname removal targets impersonation scams and leaves traceability unchanged

In a published response to commentary on PayNow, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Association of Banks in Singapore clarified that the planned removal of PayNow nicknames is intended solely to reduce impersonation scams by showing only partially displayed registered account names to payers. They said the change is not designed to support compliance or enforcement and does not increase the traceability of financial flows, because financial institutions already know users’ identities and existing customer due diligence, transaction monitoring and suspicious transaction reporting processes remain unchanged. The authorities said impersonation scams in Singapore doubled over the past year and that misuse of PayNow nicknames contributed to many cases. The move to partial name display, first announced on April 29, followed consumer and industry surveys on display options and is intended to balance payment confidence with privacy by obscuring full names. About 30 per cent of PayNow users who currently use nicknames will see a change, while the measure will also stop the full names of the 70 per cent who do not use nicknames from being displayed. They added that safeguards are in place to detect and prevent large scale data harvesting, and that the change sits alongside other anti-scam measures including transaction limits, cooling-off periods, fraud monitoring and consumer education.