PayNow and its Promotions

You are reading it right, I am referring to PayNow and not DBS PayLah.

Remember the days when you make a fund transfer to your friend and it takes a few days before it appears in your friend's bank account? Then came FAST which stands for Fast And Secure Transfers where the fund transfer/money magically appears immediately in your friend's bank account. PayNow uses the same magic except it allows you to make fund transfer simply by using the other person mobile number or NRIC on your ibanking site/application. This removes the hassle of going through the tedious process of adding "New Payee", double checking and triple checking to ensure that the account number you entered is correct before taking out your OTP device to verify and confirm the addition of 1 new payee (You have yet to make the fund transfer. lol). I guess this is definitely a small step towards Singapore becoming a Smart Nation and going cashless. I am still pretty amazed at how we survived in Iceland without cash, just credit cards.

Anyway, you can refer to these articles for more information:
- New service PayNow to allow interbank transfers using mobile phone numbers

- From PayNow to unified system that pays everything

- PayNow FAQ

To get started, you need to register your mobile number with anyone of the participating banks. Note that you can only register with ONE of them.

Since you can only register with one of them, the banks will be competing for customers by offering sign up promotion!

Citi - None?! (Update on 12th July 2017: $10 Grab Credit*)

DBS - Register for PayNow and win a red iPhone* 7 Plus!

HSBC - Lazada $10 promo code*

Maybank - At least $5 off Grab ride + Lucky Draw for $2,888*

OCBC - Luck Draw for $50,000*

SCB - $10 Cash Bonus*

UOB - $5/10 Cash Credit*

Note that all the promotions have * - terms and conditions apply. Do take some time and glance through them. Below are just some of my personal opinions and a summary of what the banks have to offer:

Citi

I am amazed at how I could not find a single landing page on PayNow for Citi. Definitely not holding up to their slogan "Citi Never Sleeps", I think the whole marketing department must be sleeping!

Update: First 5,000 eligible customers + make a minimum of $10 transfer. By now should be gone as one of the readers pointed out where a promotional email was sent to existing customers.

DBS

30 winners will be chosen from the eligible customers. KPO not very lucky so will probably give this a miss.

HSBC

First 3,000 eligible customers. Almost no chance but better than nothing.

Maybank

1st Prize: $2,888

2nd Prize: $1,888

3rd Prize: $888

Daily winners of $20 from now till 31st December 2017. KPO not a Maybank customer

OCBC

1st Prize: $50,000

2nd Prize: $30,000

3rd Prize: $10,000

20 winners weekly for 6 weeks: $500. I shall get CZM to register for this. KPO not very lucky so will probably give this a miss.

SCB

First 20,000 eligible customers. KPO registered for this :)

UOB

First 5,000 eligible customers for the 1st $5. Subsequent $5 requires you to spend at least $20 using UOB MyKey.

PayNow went live at 8 am 10th July 2017. So I think you should stand a pretty good chance with SCB if you are a customer. Otherwise, go for the OCBC lucky draw and win BIG!