DBS today helped more than 800 merchants on e-Bazaar platform, BazaarRia, to get paid instantly especially during the recent Ramadan.
To prepare for Hari Raya Puasa, which marks the end of Ramadan, bazaars sell everything from home decorations and clothing to sweet treats and electronics. However, due to extended circuit breaker measures, all physical Ramadan bazaars were cancelled, leaving many merchants with a sudden and unexpected loss in income and cashflow.
Many of these merchants, which often transact in cash, also tend to depend on Ramadan bazaars across various townships in Singapore to make up a significant percentage of their annual revenue.
To address the income and cashflow gap arising from the cancellation of physical bazaars, e-bazaar platforms have been stepping up to help bring merchants online. However, most e-bazaar payment methods tend to accept only credit card payments – making it inaccessible to the one in four Singaporeans who do not have one, and also limiting the clientele to whom merchants can reach out.
BazaarRia’s payment systems were integrated with DBS MAX, which is DBS’ mobile-based QR payment collection solution enabling businesses to receive funds instantly. Because of that, credit cards are not required for payment and customers can pay through an instant bank transfer made through his or her mobile phone.
All a customer needed to do after finalising the basket of items to be purchased, is to use his/her mobile phone to scan the automatically generated PayNow QR code on the BazaarRia payment page, and the funds will be instantly sent to the merchant, completing the sale in just a few seconds. In turn, merchants enjoy real-time collection of payments which will be automatically consolidated into their bank accounts.
DBS Bank worked with its client Mi Planets, which is the platform developer for BazaarRia, to integrate the bank’s digital payments and collections solution, DBS MAX, into the e-Bazaar platform.
