Be aware of scammers impersonating as IMDA officers and report any suspicious calls to the police. Please note that IMDA officers will never call you nor request for your personal information. For scam-related advice, please call the Anti-Scam helpline at 1800-722-6688 or go to www.scamalert.sg.

Hawkers Go Digital

A stall owner has implemented QR codes to accept digital payments under the Hawkers Go Digital initiative

Taking your business into the future

NEA Hawker centres (including cooked food and market stalls), HDB coffee shops and JTC industrial canteens are an irreplaceable part of Singapore’s food culture—and always will be. 

To help our hawkers safely operate in the post-COVID future alongside Singapore’s digitalisation, we’ve lined up a few initiatives to get things started.

Supporting Hawkers to go Digital!

A stall owner at a hawker centre is being introduced to the Hawkers Go Digital initiative by an IMDA employee

SG Digital Office and the National Environment Agency are expanding efforts to help hawkers benefit from technology and digital solutions by launching the Singapore Together Alliance for Action – Online Ordering for Hawkers. This workgroup, comprising delivery platforms, hawkers associations, community partners and government agencies, will be working closely together to support our hawkers by:

  1. Helping them go digital,
  2. Develop a sustainable commercial model
  3. Raise consumer awareness about delivery platforms

Besides helping hawkers with adoption of digital payment platforms, our Digital Ambassadors will also be making their rounds to hawker centres to understand hawkers’ needs and to share the benefits of food delivery platforms. Interested hawkers can speak to our Digital Ambassadors at SG Digital community hubs or call us at 6377 3800.

Go contactless, go e-payment!

In these extraordinary times, maintaining public health and safety is a top priority. To help stallholders reduce physical contact with their customers, we encourage adoption of the SGQR1, unified digital payment solution.

Enterprise Singapore (“ESG”) and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (“IMDA”) are partnering the Housing and Development Board (“HDB”), JTC Corporation (“JTC”) and National Environment Agency (“NEA”) to accelerate the roll-out of the Unified e-Payment Solution nationwide in HDB coffee shops, NEA hawker centres and JTC industrial canteens.

In this new phase of the initiative, stallholders will be encouraged to adopt a contactless digital payment option by adopting an unique SGQR label at their stall. By using a SGQR, stallholders will be able to receive digital payments through 19 different payment schemes, including DBS PayLah!, GrabPay and Singtel Dash.

To help support hawkers, NETS is giving $3 cash bonus for every 10 NETS transactions to all hawkers as well as canteens, coffee shops, food courts, and eating houses when they accept NETS payments until 31 July 2021

Consumers are encouraged to reduce contact by paying with NETS ATM Card or NETS QR.

More details can be found on NETS.

How to sign up

Starting from June 2020, the SG Digital Office will be deploying a team of Digital Ambassadors to encourage stallholders in over 100 NEA hawker centres and markets, HDB coffee shops, and JTC industrial canteens to adopt SGQR codes for e-payment. Keep a look out for our Digital Ambassadors!

Step 1. Talk to your friendly SG Digital Digital Ambassador
Step 2. Sign up with your NRIC, Current NEA or SFA License and Bank statement2 

The Government will cover transaction fees (i.e. merchant discount rate of 0.5% payable by merchants) until 31 December 2024.

For more information on signing up, please contact NETS Customer Service Hotline at info@nets.com.sg or 6274 1212.

Encouraging your digital journey

For Food Services and Retail enterprises interested in leveraging digital tools and solutions to adapt to safe management practices, the Digital Resilience Bonus will provide additional support of up to $10,000. The payout will offset the cost of adopting digital solutions from three pre-defined categories, namely business process solutions, digital presence, and data-driven operations.

As part of Singapore's broader digitalisation efforts, the SG Digital Office is also working closely with partners like Enterprise Singapore and the Heartland Enterprise Centre Singapore (HECS) to support heartland enterprises in their digital transformation.

1 SGQRs rely on Quick Response (QR) codes to process contactless e-payment.

2 Photocopies will be needed and as they will be retained during sign-up.

To find out more about SG Digital Office, please click on the button below.

SG Digital Office

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LAST UPDATED: 23 NOV 2023

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