NETS (company)

Singaporean electronic payment service provider

Network for Electronic Transfers, colloquially known as NETS, is a Singaporean electronic payment service provider. Founded in 1986 by a consortium of local banks, it aims to establish the debit network and drive the adoption of electronic payments in Singapore. It is owned by DBS Bank, OCBC Bank and United Overseas Bank (UOB). The NETS Group (comprising NETS, BCS and BCSIS) provides a full suite of payments and financial processing services including direct debit and credit payments at point of sale (NETS) and online (eNETS), mobile payments (NETSPay), card services (CashCard, FlashPay card), electronic funds transfer (FAST, Paynow, GIRO) and payment and clearing solutions (Real Time Gross Settlement, Cheque Truncation System). NETS is also a member of the Asian Payment Network (APN) and a council member of UnionPay International.

NETS was first introduced to the public on 27 June 1985 as a 2 month pilot project involving 10,000 ATM card holders from the five local banks, namely DBS Bank, OCBC Bank, UOB, POSB Bank and OUB through 64 terminals installed at participating government offices, supermarkets, department stores and petrol kiosks. The service was officially launched on 18 January 1986, allowing 1.3 million ATM card holders to make transactions through the initial NETS network of 195 terminals located in various retail outlets and by 1993, consumer spending through NETS reached S$1.14 billion. In 2020, NETS Group signed a long term lease to two full floors and a ground floor unit, at Boustead Projects' development, 351 on Braddell.

NETS operates Singapore's national debit scheme enabling customers of DBS Bank, POSB, HSBC, Maybank, OCBC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and UOB to make payments using their physical/contactless ATM cards or mobile devices at more than 120,000 acceptance points in Singapore including major retailers, food courts, hawker centres, convenience stores and supermarkets. The nationwide acceptance infrastructure is the largest in Singapore and includes 54,000 Unified Point of Sale (Unified POS) terminals (which accept NETS, NETS FlashPay, debit and credit cards such as VISA, Mastercard, American Express, UnionPay, RuPay and JCB) and 94,000 QR acceptance points (for payments via NETSPay, PayLah!, Pay Anyone and Mighty). In 2011, NETS' debit system was designated as national payment system by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

NETS introduced the 1st generation chip based CashCard in 1995. The CashCard is a stored value card that is predominantly used as a payment mode for Singapore's Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) and car park charges since the introduction of the in vehicle unit in 1997. The CashCard can also be used for retail purchases.

In May 2015, NETS launched vCashCard, a virtual wallet for road tolls payment that allows motorists to drive through Singapore's Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) gantries seamlessly. Road toll payments are automatically charged to their bank accounts or debit/credit cards. With NETS vCashCard, motorists do not need to worry about forgetting to insert a physical CashCard/FlashPay into the in vehicle unit or having insufficient value in the CashCard/FlashPay and paying unnecessary ERP admin fees. Motorists can sign up for auto top up service and view their ERP transactions at the vCashCard website or NETS vCashCard app from App Store or Google Play.

In May 2018, the 2nd generation contactless CashCard was released. The CEPAS CashCard card is based on the same specifications as the CEPAS FlashPay card, thus both cards can be used interchangeably. The Contactless CashCard was rebranded NETS Motoring Card in March 2021.

The Singapore Government launched CEPAS 2.0 (Contactless e Purse Application), a Singaporean specification of a common standard for electronic money smart card, in 2009. The transit market was opened to more issuers, enabling NETS to participate and subsequently launch the NETS FlashPay card on 9 October 2009. FlashPay is a multipurpose contactless stored value smart card that can be used for a huge variety of quick payments at/on – MRT/LRT, public buses, taxis, ERP gantries (with the dual mode in vehicle unit), car parks (which have been upgraded to accept CEPAS compliant cards), and 102,000 retail acceptance points island wide. It is comparable to the Octopus card in Hong Kong. Compared to EZ Link, FlashPay is accepted at more retail shops, including most convenience stores, supermarkets, and fast food restaurants. In October 2010, NETS launched the Auto Top Up service for the NETS FlashPay card, allowing commuters to automatically top up the value on their cards to a predetermined amount (S$30, S$40 or S$50) when it runs low or when there is insufficient stored value on the card to make payment at all MRT and LRT stations, public buses, ERP gantries and EPS (upgraded) carparks. The FlashPay Reader app was released in February 2016 for Android devices with NFC capabilities. It allows topping up of FlashPay cards using NFC enabled Android phones, with debit cards and credit cards as payment options. Cardholders can also check their card balance, card expiry date, view the last 30 transactions, register for Auto Top Up by Credit/Debit Card and view RSVP balance with the FlashPay Reader.

In November 2022, NETS launched the Prepaid Card. Unlike the FlashPay card, the Prepaid Card uses online account based ticketing compatible with SimplyGo. The card can also be used for retail purposes. It is however not compatible with the ERP. On 10 January 2024, LTA announced that NETS FlashPay cards will no longer be accepted for public transport fare payment from 1 June 2024, due to phasing out of the legacy card based ticketing system. Commuters with NETS FlashPay Cards may exchange their current card for a free NETS Prepaid Card at SimplyGo Ticket Offices or Ticketing Service Centres. Due to bottlenecks, high transaction volume, and technical issues with the SimplyGo transition on both EZ Link and NETS payment networks, NETS announced that the free exchange for NETS Prepaid Cards which was planned to commence on 19 January 2024 has been postponed until further notice.

NETS EFTPOS is a nationwide infrastructure that enables DBS, HSBC, Maybank, OCBC, POSB, UOB and Standard Chartered Bank customers to make purchases at points of sale using their ATM cards. The NETS EFTPOS service is available at more than 130,000 acceptance points throughout Singapore.

NETS Unified POS was introduced to accept contact/contactless, credit and debit payments on one terminal. The terminal accepts NETS, NETS FlashPay, debit and credit schemes such as VISA, MasterCard, American Express, UnionPay and JCB, cards issued by partnering banks (e. g. BCA bank), as well as NFC enabled mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay. NETS Unified POS can be integrated with loyalty programmes, prepaid services and point of sale via Electronic Cash Register interface.

eNETS is an online payment gateway services. It enables payment from all major credit cards and currencies as well as Direct Debit (internet banking payments) from the major banks in Singapore and China, including DBS (Singapore and Hong Kong), UOB, OCBC, Citibank and BNU.

NETS eCommerce was launched in 2016 to provide a quick and affordable end to end solution to set up webstores. The solution is integrated with secured payment options using eNETS Debit and Credit.

NETSPay is a digital wallet app. Launched in October 2017, it introduces 2 new payment options for NETS debit, NETS Contactless and NETS QR. NETS Contactless is supported on Android devices via NFC and HCE, and NETS QR is supported on Android & iOS devices via QR code. ATM cardholders can digitise their bankcards with the app, replacing the debit card chip and PIN transaction at point of sale terminals that have been upgraded to accept contactless and QR code payments. Fingerprint ID or passcode authentication is required to access the app, with a user configurable session timeout. No PIN is required for transactions below $100. NETS Contactless ATM cards were launched from the first quarter of 2018. In December 2018, NETS Contactless cards issued by DBS/POSB, UOB, OCBC began to be accepted for LTA's public transport account based ticketing trial. In May 2023, the NETS Contactless functionality was extended to Mastercard and Visa debit cards, in addition to the chip and PIN transaction method. The NETSPay wallet was discontinued on 1 December 2020 and the NETSPay app was discontinued on 31 October 2023. The Government will cover transaction fees of 0.5% payable by merchants until 31 December 2024. The initiative began its roll out to hawker stalls starting from June 2019 under SGQR, a single standardised QR code for e payments. The participating payment schemes for the NETS unified e payment system at hawkers centres include: ActiveSG, Alipay, American Express, Singtel Dash, DBS PayLah, Diners Club International, Discover, EZ Link, GrabPay, SLIDE Wallet, LifeUp Pay, LiquidPay, NETSPay, OCBC PayAnyone, RazerPay, Standard Chartered, UnionPay, UOB Mighty, VIA by Singtel, WeChat Pay, Aby Pay, Shopee Pay, XNAP. In November 2023, the Monetary Authority of Singapore announced a proof of concept for SGQR+, an upgraded version of SGQR that provides interoperability among a wide variety of payment schemes in a convenient and cost effective way, through a single merchant acquirer. Merchants only need to maintain a relationship with a single preferred primary acquirer to accept multiple payment schemes, instead of multiple acquirers under the existing system. Examples of similar integrated QR code payment systems in ASEAN include: QRIS in Indonesia, DuitNow in Malaysia, Thai QR in Thailand. Under the SGQR+ Proof of Concept, the stakeholders include Liquid Group (as Switch Operator) and NETS (as Master Merchant Acquirer). The participating payment schemes for SGQR+ Proof Of Concept include: ActiveSG, Alipay, Alipay+, Changi Pay, Diners, Discover, DuitNow, EZ Link, GLN, Google Pay (via XNAP), GrabPay, iAPPS, LiquidPay, Mastercard, Moolahgo, NETS, PromptPay, ShopeePay, Singtel Dash, UnionPay, Visa, WeChat, XNAP.

Payment Mode Description Year Introduced Registration Requirement Magnetic Stripe Chip and PIN Contactless payment Top Up Locations • NETS EFTPOS Debit Direct debit from bank account. 1985: Magnetic stripe card 2014: EMV card 2017: Contactless card & NETSPay mobile app The card is tied to user's bank account. ✔ • NETS Prepaid Card for SimplyGo (Account based Online Debit) Online account based ticketing wallet, for retail and public transport payments. It functions similarly to the NETS EFTPOS Debit card. As the card information is stored on a central server, the card balance can be topped up without presence of physical card. ✓ It is compatible with the SimplyGo system for remote management of public transport cards. ✗ Fare cost and card balance will not be displayed at the gantry. Commuters have to create an account and sign in to the SimplyGo website or app, to view their travel history and its related fares. ✗ It is not compatible with ERP and carpark payments. 2022 Top ups can currently only be done online with Visa/Mastercard cards on the NETS mobile app. Top ups are currently unavailable at self help machines.

Payment Mode Description Year Introduced Registration Requirement Contactless payment QR code payment Top Up Locations • NETSPay Stores digitised NETS EFTPOS Debit cards. Includes a prepaid wallet for peer to peer money transfers and UnionPay support. 2017 The NETSPay app was discontinued on 31 October 2023. The card is tied to user's bank account. Direct deduction from bank account for topping up UnionPay wallet. (discontinued on 1 Dec 2020)

Payment Mode Description Year Introduced Required Information Stored Payment Details Supported Platforms Payment Process • eNETS An online payment gateway for online payments via bank account direct debit. It can be used at merchants such as Singapore government services, airlines bookings, bill payments at AXS online. 2001 • iBanking login details • Hardware token or bank mobile app to authenticate each transaction Mobile: Web Browser Desktop: Web Browser While making payment on a merchant's app/website, the user will be redirected to the eNETS website. The user has to login with their iBanking login details and authenticate the transaction with a hardware token or mobile app by the bank. • NETSPay A digital wallet app that stores digitised NETS EFTPOS Debit cards. It can be used for both physical and online purchases, at merchants such as AXS Payment, Qoo10. 2017 The NETSPay app was discontinued on 31 October 2023. 2019 • ATM card number (last 4 digits) • NRIC number • SMS OTP verification (one time setup) Only 1 bank card Mobile: Merchant apps with NETS Click integration on Android, iOS. Desktop: Unavailable Mobile: After adding a bank card, the user can make mobile payments on selected merchants' mobile apps with just a click.</p>

NETS provides local and regional ATM switching services for banks. NETS partnered with Malaysian Electronic Payment System (MEPS) in Malaysia to enable bilateral cross border ATM withdrawal services, and UnionPay in China to enable its cardholders to make purchases and withdraw cash from ATMs in Singapore. India also made a deal in 2018 wherein Indian RuPay Cards have acceptance in Singapore and same for the Singaporean counterpart in India.