Singapore, Nov 3 (IANS): Singapore's Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) have jointly launched a digital process for businesses and individuals to provide a banker's guarantee or insurance bond to government agencies within a day.

Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lawrence Wong said at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2022, which is held here from Wednesday to Friday, that MOF and MAS worked with the financial industry to digitalise these guarantees and insurance bonds.

"In the past, the application process for such guarantees and bonds takes a few days. But with the digitalisation efforts, this can all be done online within a day," he said.

According to MOF and MAS, with the new process, businesses and individuals will no longer need to apply for a paper guarantee from a financial institution, collect it when it is ready, and deliver the guarantee to the government agency, to discharge their contractual or licensing obligations, Xinhua news agency reported.

Instead, they can apply for an eGuarantee from more than 20 participating financial institutions through their websites or email for direct submission to 17 government agencies. More financial institutions and government agencies are scheduled to come on board the new digital process by the end of 2023.