Singapore’s card payments market is expected to grow steadily by 6.2% in 2025, reaching appr. SGD158.2 billion (about $119.6 billion), supported by near-universal bank access, “extensive” merchant acceptance, and increasing use of contactless cards, according to GlobalData, a data and analytics company.
GlobalData’s Payment Cards Analytics indicates that the card payment value in Singapore increased steadily in 2024, registering growth of “5.0% year-on-year to reach SGD148.9 billion ($111.5 billion), driven by increased consumer spending, expansion of e-commerce, and wider acceptance of contactless payments.”
Ravi Sharma, Lead Banking and Payments Analyst at GlobalData, comments:
“Singapore’s payment card market has benefited from a near-100% banked population, a mature acceptance network, and coordinated efforts by government, regulators and banks to promote electronic payments. These factors, alongside innovation in contactless solutions and expanding merchant acceptance — including hawker centres and small merchants — have driven sustained growth in card payments.”
They added:
“Growth in 2025 follows a continuation of the strong recovery and structural shift to electronic payments driven by broad card ownership, a well-developed payment acceptance infrastructure, and targeted government and bank initiatives that encourage merchants and consumers to favor card-based transactions.”
Policy and subsidy initiatives have directly supported “merchant acceptance of card payments.”
The Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) offers SMEs funding for POS installations — up to “50% support for applications— helping retailers, and other small businesses adopt card acceptance technologies and thereby expand the merchant footprint for card payments.”
Debit cards remain an important pillar of the market in 2025, “accounting for 32.4% of total card payment value of SGD51.2 billion ($38.7 billion).”
Their popularity stems from wide provision of “basic bank accounts (often bundled with a debit card) and strong domestic acceptance through NETS, which links partner banks to more than 130,000 acceptance points and also supports contactless payments with its NETS FlashPay functionality.”
Financial inclusion initiatives and low-cost basic accounts “from major banks have ensured a high base of debit card users and steady growth in debit payments.”
Credit and charge cards continue to dominate total card payment value, representing “67.6% of the market in 2025.”
Credit usage has been buoyed by consumer preference “for value-added features such as rewards, cashback and instalment facilities; these benefits have contributed to faster growth of credit card volumes and values versus debit.”
While debit cards offer considerable acceptance and everyday utility, credit and charge cards “remain larger in terms of transaction value due to middle-to-higher average ticket sizes and its high usage for ecommerce payments.”
Sharma continued:
“Total card payments in Singapore are expected to continue growing through 2029, driven by further adoption of contactless payments, expansion of merchant acceptance supported by subsidy programs, growing preference for credit card benefits and continued enhancements in payment infrastructure.
They concluded:
“These trends, combined with the high banked population and well-established domestic debit scheme, underpin steady card payment market growth; however, geopolitical and trade uncertainties could temper consumer spending and slow growth in certain periods.”