Nets – the leading payment solutions provider – recently announced that it would launch new payment modes across all of its 100,000 acceptance points in Singapore by mid-2018. What does this mean for Singapore’s quest for a unified payments system? Japnit Singh, Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Spire Research and Consulting shared his insights, published on Today Online’s news portal. Japnit opined that the infrastructure laid out by Nets for a unified point-of-sales terminal is a big step forward. But what was needed was an open platform with other payment companies able to join, to ensure competition. This is seen in the telco industry where infrastructure sharing is required. The new payment modes that Nets will implement include an app storing a digital version of Automated-teller machine (ATM) cards, new contactless cards along with mobile payments through Quick Response (QR) codes. It remains to be seen if transaction fees will be hiked. If so, merchants will h