MAS Sustainability Report

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has issued its first Sustainability Report for 2020/21. At the moment it is only reporting on Scope 1 and 2 emissions based on the Greenhouse Gas protocol (GHG)¹. It intends to report on Scope 3 emissions in future reports. The report has a section dedicated to reducing emissions related to currency operations. MAS has identified four areas of focus to reduce its currency related emissions.

1. Promoting e-payments as an alternative option to cash and cheques

Singapore has a well-developed e-payment infrastructure which includes its Singapore Quick Response Code (SQRC), Fast and Secure Transfer (FAST), Unified Point of Sale and PayNow systems. It wants to make e-payments easy to use and accessible so that cash usage declines. Progress has been made with this with the volume of ATM withdrawals down from 205 million in 2019 to 172 million in 2020, $2, $5, $10 and $50 volumes down 24% and cheque clearance down 31% from 45.8 million to 31.5 million over the same period.