S'pore Pools charging 10-cent fee for using PayNow raised in Parliament, DPM Gan says practice being addressed

Merchants that accept PayNow transactions are not allowed to impose surcharges on customers for using this method of payment.

MP for Potong Pasir Alex Yeo asked whether the government is aware of any entities, including Singapore Pools, which are exempt from the rules prohibiting merchants from imposing surcharges for PayNow transactions.

Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong, who is also the Minister for Trade and Industry and chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, gave his response in an Oct. 14 written parliamentary reply.

Gan said the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS), which owns the PayNow scheme, is engaging Singapore Pools to address this practice.

Parliamentary question

Currently, Singapore Pools charges a S$0.10 fee for each PayNow transaction, such as the topping up of online betting accounts.

Yeo had asked whether the government was aware of any entities, including Singapore Pools, that are exempted from the rules prohibiting merchants from imposing surcharges for PayNow transactions.

Gan said ABS has rules that prohibit merchants from imposing a surcharge on customers using PayNow as a payment method.

He added that the major retail banks waive transaction fees for payments received by merchants from end-consumers.

But merchants are charged a minimal fee if additional services, such as notifications for funds received, are used.

There are more than 300,000 businesses in Singapore registered to use PayNow, Gan also said.

Singapore Pools, a statutory board of the Ministry of Finance and a subsidiary of the Tote Board, is the only legalised sports, lottery and horse racing operator in Singapore.

Singapore Pools: Practice not new

A Singapore Pools spokeswoman told The Straits Times that the surcharge is not a new practice, but did not disclose for how long it has been in place.

The 10-cent fee was introduced before the surcharge prohibition rules were made effective by ABS in March 2024, it was revealed.

Singapore Pools generated S$12.7 billion in turnover in the 2024/2025 financial year.

In the previous year, it generated S$12.2 billion.

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