MAS proposes requiring major and standard payment institutions to join FIDReC

Implications for lenders

Lenders that also hold a payment institution licence in Singapore, or that disburse and collect through licensed payment partners, may see disputes over payments and scam losses go to FIDReC rather than MAS; based on the e-wallet experience, where 99% of completed claims ended at mediation, complaint handling may need to be designed for early settlement. Case fees per dispute may also give firms a reason to resolve complaints before they escalate.

Implications

Facts

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) published consultation paper P017-2026 on 16 October 2026. It proposes amending the Financial Services and Markets (Dispute Resolution Schemes) Regulations so that all major payment institutions and standard payment institutions licensed under the Payment Services Act 2019 must subscribe to the Financial Industry Disputes Resolution Centre (FIDReC). Their customers could then take eligible disputes to FIDReC for mediation and adjudication. Eligible complainants are individuals, sole proprietors, charities and small businesses, who must first raise the dispute with the firm.

Payment service providers are not currently prescribed financial institutions for FIDReC, and MAS has handled their customers' disputes on a supervisory basis. The exception is e-wallet providers that had to join FIDReC under the Shared Responsibility Framework for phishing scams. From the framework's start to 30 June 2026, FIDReC received 416 claims against e-wallet providers and handled 141 of them. ^{1 2} Of the completed claims, 99% concluded at mediation and the rest required adjudication. ³

MAS also proposes that issuers of MAS-regulated stablecoins subscribe within an appropriate timeframe after the separate stablecoin framework takes effect. Money-changing licensees are excluded; MAS judged the requirement overly burdensome given their small risk surface. Joining firms would pay an initial onboarding fee, a case fee for each eligible dispute and an annual general levy. The paper sets no start date: MAS and FIDReC will engage industry on fees and implementation timelines over 2027. Comments are due by 30 November 2026.

Analysis

The proposal moves payment-firm disputes from case-by-case supervisory handling to the same independent scheme that already covers banks, finance companies and card issuers in Singapore. The e-wallet experience suggests what that looks like in practice: FIDReC handled about a third of the claims it received against e-wallet providers (about 34%, a T&S calculation from MAS figures), and almost all completed claims were settled at mediation rather than adjudication. ⁴

Cambodia shows a different model. There the central bank's own consumer-protection function took in 721 complaints and enquiries in 2025 and resolved 683 within the year. ^{5 6} Singapore is shifting its payment sector away from the regulator-as-handler model and towards an industry-funded scheme with a binding adjudication step, paid for by the firms through case fees and levies.

Counterpoints and uncertainties

The paper is a proposal: scope, fees and timing may change after the consultation closes, and the paper gives no number of affected licensees or fee amounts. The e-wallet figures cover a narrow set of claims under the scam framework and may not predict dispute volumes across remittance, merchant acquisition or digital payment token services. The stablecoin element depends on a separate framework that is not yet in force.