I used to pay conservancy fees for my apartments using GIRO. For some reason, the GIRO stopped. I received a reminder letter including interest charges. I had to make payment to the management company in the old fashion way - write a check and send it by mail. There was no convenient way to make an online payment.My friend told me that when he first entered USA in 15 years ago, 99% of people make payment by check. Today, Americans hardly make payment by check, as there are many convenient ways to make payment online.
My friend in China told me that he does not use the check at all, as there are many other convenient and low cost ways to make payment.
Singapore used to be far ahead in the use of technology, but today, we are way behind many countries. We are outdated and expensive. When businesses and banks have to incur the heavy cost of administration, they have to add the cost to consumers. This is why cost of living and of doing business in Singapore is now very high.
Who is responsible for this sad state of affairs in Singapore? Should the blame go to IDA (who is responsible to encourage the use of information technology) or the MAS (who supervises the banks) or the Ministry of Law (who writes the law to enable change to happen)? In Singapore, we have the culture of pointing fingers around from one agency or another - so many changes cannot happen.
There is only one party that is responsible for all of these agencies - the Singapore Government. I hope that our leaders in the cabinet will be aware that changes have to be done.
I am 100% with you on my annoyance at the state of online banking in Singapore. There is so much that can be done to improve things for end consumers and small business.
ReplyDeleteBut why is it the governments fault? And why should they be the ones to push to a solution? Can't consumers do something collectively? Politically this year citizens like yourself stood up and volunteered their time and expertise to stand for elections and made a difference. This is one area where similar efforts may also make a difference.
As pointed out, there are many parties within the Government that were not working together. This is evident everyday. Example :the new Additional Stamp duties just introduced. It was a day later that the 6 exempted territories were announced. The Law & Foreign Ministries must have been left out in initial brain storming ! No ? ( Incidentally, the minister in charge is the same....
ReplyDeleteYou cannot link the incident of having to make payment using cheuque, to we are outdated and expensive to add cost to consumer to Singapore govt fault. The government is aware of changes to be made, but not due to your line of reasoning. You also mentioned that there is a sad state of affairs in Singapore, and that is misleading and an over exaggeration just because of you having to make cheuqe payment.
ReplyDeleteIDA wants to promote online payment, but it seemed that MAS is not making this happen. And the law in Singapore is also not clear about what happens when there is some mistake, so nobody in Singapore wants to take the lead to sort out this situation. And we remain quite backward in relying on check payments.
ReplyDeleteI am not exaggerating. I am just stating the fact that Singapore is still using a lot of checks when most countries have made online payment happen. We can keep our heads in the sand and say that Singapore is okay, that check payment is okay, that the Singapore government is okay.
So, friends, welcome to the high cost and wasteful environment in Singapore.