Payments facility promises closer ties for Singapore companies and Chinese suppliers

Singapore-headquartered InstaReM has launched a payment facility that is designed to make trade between Singapore and China easier with quicker realisation of payments by Chinese suppliers to Singapore.

Given its proximity and historical ties with China, Singapore maintains the leading position among the ASEAN countries in its trade with China. According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), at US$328bn, Singapore was the world’s 15th largest importer in 2017, with a bulk of its imports (US$42.6bn) coming from China.

Despite high stakes, making payments to China has not been easy for Singaporean businesses. While B2C payments channels dominate the market, there remains a lag in the development of B2B payments solutions. Traditionally, the SME segment has been underserved and that has created the need for a platform catering specially to them, where they can make multiple payments to their stakeholders located in different parts of the world .

To address this issue, InstaReM has extended its ‘InstaReM for SMEs’ cross-border payments service to the Singaporean businesses importing from China, making their cross-border payments as simple as the local payments.

As a fintech Value-Added Services (VAS) partner of the National Trade Platform (NTP), Singapore’s national trade information management platform, InstaReM is in a position to provide international payments-related services to NTP members with business interests in China. As part of the NTP ecosystem, InstaReM says it fulfils trade community’s need for alternative cost-effective cross-border payments beyond such services traditionally provided by banks.