Opportunities in the digital economy over the next three years.
Singapore’s Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA) and the Singapore Business Federation (SBF) and Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) have renewed a Memorandum of Intent (MOI) on 22 September 2020 to reaffirm both party’s continued commitment to help drive digital transformation across the Singapore business community, promote the adoption of digital technologies and position them to seize opportunities in the digital economy over the next three years.
These areas include, but are not limited to:
- Digital Transactions between Businesses – Help businesses understand and adopt digital B2B technologies such as e-invoicing and e-signatures, through outreach and awareness activities, and work with key industry partners to raise their level of adoption.
- Digital Economy Agreements (DEA) and Cross Border Data Flows – Help businesses understand how they can leverage Singapore’s DEAs and initiatives such as the APEC Cross Border Privacy Rules and ASEAN Cross Border Data Flows Mechanism to operate seamlessly across borders.
- SMEs Go Digital Outreach – Support the development of digital platforms and outreach to SMEs to help them understand their current digital readiness and facilitate the adoption of suitable digital solutions.
Lim Ming Yan, chairman of SBF said, COVID-19 has highlighted the need for businesses to adopt digital transformation to remain relevant and competitive.
“This collaboration between SBF and IMDA seeks to provide relevant support to businesses in their digital transformation efforts, including efforts to push boundaries and explore new growth markets,” he said.
Digital transformation is necessary for businesses to grow and thrive in this new economic reality. Companies that can quickly move to adopt digital technologies and leverage digital platforms, stand to benefit not only from operational efficiencies, but importantly, the potential to scale and reach more partners and customers beyond Singapore, said Lew Chuen Hong, chief executive of IMDA.
Seamless business transaction
IMDA has also encouraged business transactions in the next few months, by adopting a solution that links e-invoices with PayNow payments.
IMDA implemented Singapore’s nationwide e-invoicing network1, now called InvoiceNow, in 2019 to help businesses improve efficiency, reduce cost, receive payment faster, facilitate cross-border business transactions, and reduce our impact on the environment by using lesser paper invoices.
To help even more businesses digitalise, IMDA has partnered DBS, OCBC and UOB to develop solutions, leveraging the nationwide e-invoicing network, InvoiceNow, with the PayNow e-payment system.
InvoiceNow and PayNow both uses the Unique Entity Number (“UEN”) to help businesses send or receive invoices and collect payments easily.
By registering for both services, business can then enjoy business efficiency, cost reduction and seamless payments, said Jane Lim, assistant chief executive at IMDA said.
“Within the past three months, we have seen an exponential increase in businesses coming onboard e-invoicing,” she said “Our aim is to drive further adoption to benefit more businesses, as IMDA leads Singapore’s digital transformation in this sector.
We are excited to partner with DBS, OCBC and UOB, to co-create innovative solutions to strengthen for businesses that will fortify Singapore’s competitiveness in the global digital economy.”
Keeping it secure
IMDA and the Personal Data Protection Commission are collaborating with National Council of Social Service (NCSS) to build data management capabilities in the social services sector through Data Protection-as-a-Service (DPaaS).
DPaaS is an alternative for organisations to outsource their data protection functions. Organisations may approach any of the listed providers who are registered with IMDA. NCSS will be providing a S$1.5 million grant to social service agencies over the next two years for the engagement of data protection service providers. This helps organisations in the social service sector put in place baseline data protection safeguards and measures to support their longer-term digitalisation roadmap.
