Why is the PayNow nickname feature being discontinued?

The Association of Banks in Singapore as the PayNow scheme owner regularly reviews measures to improve the security of digital payments. The discontinuation of PayNow’s nickname feature for retail customers is intended to combat impersonation scams.

The nickname feature has been available since PayNow’s launch in 2017, originally introduced to address privacy concerns from customers who preferred not display their full registered names when receiving payments via their mobile numbers or NRIC numbers. However, scammers have exploited this privacy feature. They would register PayNow accounts and then set a nickname to mirror those of legitimate entities or individuals they sought to impersonate. This enabled them to create convincing facades when soliciting payments or when victims were verifying transfer details.

By removing the nickname feature, the system will only display verified, registered account names, significantly reducing scammers' ability to masquerade as legitimate entities. This change results in greater transparency in payment identification, making it considerably more difficult for scammers to successfully impersonate trusted organisations or individuals through manipulated account names.