Now, as Singapore pushes towards becoming a cashless society as part of the overall digitalisation and transformation of its economy, SOCASH is here to ease the transition. Through a mobile app, users can select a nearby merchant and their desired withdrawal amount before heading over to collect their cash. Users avoid the hassle of locating the nearest ATM, while merchants can offload accumulated cash in their tills without physically visiting a bank to make deposits.
Over the last five years, Hari Sivan and his team have turned convenience stalls in HDB heartlands into “human ATMs”. People enter clutching their phones and exchange a few words with cashiers before leaving with pieces of red $10 or blue $50 notes tucked in their wallets.
These interactions may seem strange, but they are an intermediate stage of sorts. Multiple cashless payment systems abound but not everyone is on board, merchants and customers included. A survey done by Rapyd, a UK-based payment service provider, indicated that 63% of customers continue to use cash for goods and services bought over the retail counter.
