DESPITE technological advances, many people still write cheques to pay their bills, especially for irregular payments. This manual mode of payment is inefficient, costly and time consuming.

The Infocomm Development Authority and the Monetary Authority of Singapore should introduce a convenient way for the public to pay their bills electronically, and make it as simple as writing a cheque. This should be done via a common platform that serves all banks, instead of asking each bank to develop its own application.

The payer should log in to his bank account and write an e-cheque by indicating the party and amount to be paid, and details of the payment. If there is a mistake, the payer should be allowed to cancel the e-cheque within one day.

The payee should have the facility to log in to the platform to view the details of the electronic payment credited to his account, similar to clearing incoming physical mail. He can accept or reject the payment.

The use of a common platform will make the new system adopted more widely in a short time. It will also reduce the implementation cost of the participating banks.

The current form of Internet banking was not designed to serve the needs of commercial organisations, which explains why so few organisations ask their customers to pay via Internet banking. I believe a new system, as I have described, will overcome these shortcomings.

Tan Kin Lian

This article was first published in The Straits Times.