Singapore’s hawker centres present a fascinating case study in payment modernization. These food centres, which are deeply embedded in Singaporean culture and daily life, have traditionally operated on a cash-only basis for decades. The push toward digital payments has encountered several distinct challenges:
Infrastructure and Cost Barriers Many hawker stalls are small, family-run businesses with thin profit margins. The costs associated with payment terminals, transaction fees, and potential technical issues represent significant concerns. For elderly hawkers in particular, the initial investment and learning curve can be daunting.
Operational Speed and Efficiency Hawker centres thrive on high volume and quick turnover, especially during peak lunch and dinner hours. Any payment method must be as fast as—or faster than—cash transactions. Early digital payment systems sometimes created bottlenecks, with connectivity issues or slow processing times frustrating both vendors and customers.
Digital Literacy Gaps While Singapore has high smartphone penetration, there remains a generation gap. Older hawkers who’ve operated cash businesses for 30-40 years face a steeper learning curve with digital systems. Similarly, some older customers prefer the tangibility and simplicity of cash.
The Singapore Government’s Push The government has actively promoted digital payments through various initiatives, including subsidies for payment terminals and the development of unified payment standards. The introduction of SGQR (Singapore Quick Response Code) in 2018 was particularly significant, allowing merchants to display a single QR code that accepts multiple payment methods—reducing the need for multiple terminals.
Cultural and Psychological Factors Cash provides immediate confirmation and a sense of control that some find reassuring. There’s also the social dimension: the physical exchange of money represents a human interaction that some vendors and customers value. The transition requires not just technological adoption but cultural adjustment.
AXS’s Role in Singapore’s Payment Infrastructure
AXS (Access) has been a pioneering force in Singapore’s digital payment ecosystem since its establishment in 2003:
Historical Evolution AXS began as a bill payment network, initially allowing Singaporeans to pay utilities, government fees, and other bills at physical AXS stations located in convenience stores and other accessible locations. This represented an early step in digitizing traditionally cash-based or cheque-based transactions.
Multi-Channel Payment Solutions Over time, AXS evolved from physical kiosks to encompass mobile apps, online platforms, and merchant payment solutions. This multi-channel approach has been crucial in reaching different demographic segments with varying comfort levels with technology.
Bridging Traditional and Digital AXS’s strength lies in its ability to bridge the gap between traditional payment habits and modern digital systems. By maintaining physical touchpoints while developing digital capabilities, AXS provided a transition pathway rather than forcing abrupt change.
Merchant Solutions for Small Businesses For hawker centres specifically, AXS has developed payment solutions tailored to the unique needs of small food vendors—systems that prioritize simplicity, reliability, and speed. Understanding that a hawker serving hundreds of customers daily cannot afford system downtime or complicated processes has shaped AXS’s product development.
Integration with National Initiatives AXS has worked alongside government initiatives and other payment providers to support unified standards like SGQR, contributing to a more cohesive payment ecosystem rather than fragmenting the market with competing proprietary systems.
Business Lessons: Ground-Level Customer Understanding
Jeffrey Goh’s approach of learning from hawker centre interactions offers several valuable business lessons that extend well beyond the payments industry:
1. The “Ground Truth” Principle There’s often a significant gap between how executives imagine customers use products and how they actually use them in real-world conditions. Hawker centres operate under time pressure, space constraints, and with diverse customer demographics—conditions that reveal friction points invisible in controlled testing environments or focus groups.
2. Context Shapes Usability A payment system that works perfectly in an air-conditioned retail store might fail at a hawker centre where vendors have wet hands from washing dishes, where humidity affects equipment, or where the noise level makes audio feedback inaudible. Understanding context is crucial for product-market fit.
3. Constraints Drive Innovation Hawkers’ operational constraints—limited counter space, need for speed, minimal margin for error—force designers to strip away unnecessary complexity. These constraints often lead to better, more elegant solutions that benefit all users, not just hawkers.
4. Trust Building Through Presence By being a regular customer rather than conducting formal research visits, Goh likely gained more authentic insights. Hawkers might share frustrations with a familiar face over casual conversation that they wouldn’t reveal in a formal interview setting. This relationship-building approach yields qualitative insights that surveys cannot capture.
5. Empathy Through Shared Experience Experiencing the hawker centre as a customer—standing in queues, navigating payment during rush hour, observing the controlled chaos—builds empathy that informs better decision-making. It’s the difference between understanding intellectually and understanding viscerally.
6. Early Warning System for Problems Regular ground-level engagement serves as an early warning system for emerging issues. If multiple hawkers mention the same frustration, it signals a problem before it shows up in formal complaint channels or data analytics.
7. Inclusive Design Principles Designing for the most challenging use case (elderly hawker, high-volume environment, variable technical literacy) often results in products that work better for everyone. This is similar to how accessibility features often improve usability for all users.
8. The Humility Advantage Leaders who maintain connection with end-users and frontline experiences tend to make less arrogant assumptions about what customers need or want. This humility can be a significant competitive advantage, preventing the kind of insular thinking that leads established companies to miss disruptive shifts.
9. Cultural Intelligence Hawker centres are cultural institutions, not just commercial spaces. Understanding the social dynamics, the pride hawkers take in their craft, and the role these spaces play in Singapore’s identity helps avoid tone-deaf solutions that might be technically sound but culturally inappropriate.
10. Iteration Over Perfection Conversations with hawkers likely revealed that “good enough and reliable” often trumps “perfect but complex.” This insight encourages iterative improvement based on actual usage rather than pursuing theoretical perfection in isolation.
The convergence of these three elements—Singapore’s unique payment modernization challenge, AXS’s bridging role in the ecosystem, and the leadership philosophy of ground-level engagement—illustrates how successful digital transformation requires more than just technology. It requires deep understanding of human behavior, cultural context, and operational realities.
The hawker centre, in this sense, becomes more than just a customer segment—it becomes a laboratory for understanding the messy reality of how people interact with money, technology, and each other in high-pressure, everyday situations. The lessons learned there have applicability far beyond Singapore’s food centres, offering insights into how any organization can better understand and serve its customers by meeting them where they actually are, not where we imagine them to be.