Cheques, FAST and CPF: how a Singapore home purchase is paid

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Kooky

Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.

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A home purchase in Singapore is not one payment. It is a chain of them, spread over weeks or months, and each link travels on a different instrument. A small sum changes hands when the option on a resale flat is granted, and the housing board's notes prefer a cheque for it. Retirement savings leave the Central Provident Fund without ever passing through the buyer's bank account. A counter at the Housing and Development Board takes a cashier's order or NETS. And the instant transfer between banks stops, by its own rules, at S$200,000 a transaction.

This guide follows the money by instrument, as the position stood when the sources were read in October 2026. It rests on what the Association of Banks in Singapore, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the CPF Board, the Housing and Development Board and the Council for Estate Agencies publish, and on two banks' own pages for their fees and cut-off times. It does not rank the instruments. Each has a place that a rule, a limit or a counter procedure gives it, and one of them, the corporate cheque, is scheduled to stop being processed on 31 December 2026. Where the pages read say nothing, the guide says so: the option percentages in a private resale, the payment modes of the stamping portal, the release of a bank loan at completion and the limits on PayNow are not covered, for the reasons given in the last section.

Association of Banks in Singapore, FAST questions and answers of 23 July 2026; joint release with the Monetary Authority of Singapore, 5 December 2024; Housing and Development Board notes on the option to purchase, 7 September 2026.

One purchase, several instruments

The simplest way to see the pattern is to take the sums in the order a buyer meets them and note what the public pages say about each. The table does that for the purchase of a flat, new or resale, because that is where the official guidance is most explicit about the instrument.

The option fee starts on paper

The first money in a resale flat purchase is the option fee. MyNiceHome, the Housing and Development Board's information site, puts it at between S$1 and S$1,000 in its resale buying guide updated on 29 June 2026, agreed between the two sides and paid to the seller. The Board's own notes on the option to purchase, updated on 7 September 2026, add that the fee cannot be nil and that the preferred method of payment is a cheque.

The option runs for 21 calendar days, and the Board's notes fix its expiry at 4pm on the last day. To exercise it, the buyer pays a second sum, the option exercise fee. MyNiceHome caps the two together at S$5,000. A buyer who paid the maximum option fee of S$1,000 can therefore be asked for at most S$4,000 more on exercise. If the buyer lets the option lapse, the notes say only the option fee is lost.

On the exercise fee the Board's notes are more specific about the instrument. Where the person receiving it for the seller is a salesperson or a solicitor, the notes advise a cheque made payable to the sellers, and advise against cash.

Two other rules shape this first payment. The CPF Board's guide to housing expenses, published on 28 April 2026, states that option fees cannot be paid with CPF savings, and the Board's terms for the CPF Housing Scheme list booking fees, option fees and deposits among the items its savings may not be used for in a flat purchase. So the opening sum is the buyer's own money and not CPF savings. And the Housing and Development Board's notes bar the two sides from agreeing any further sums while they wait for completion.

For private homes, the pages read for this guide say less about amounts. What they do give is the payee rule. The Council for Estate Agencies' checklist for a buyer's agent in the sale of a completed private home, updated on 21 June 2022, says that a buyer paying conveyancing money to the seller's law firm by cheque adds the suffix "-CVY" to the firm's name. That checklist names the cheque and no other instrument.

Why the agent is not on the payment route

A buyer will often hand the first cheque over in the presence of a salesperson, and the natural question is whether the salesperson may take the money. The Council for Estate Agencies answered it in an article stated to be accurate as at 16 December 2025. Salespersons, it says, should not handle transaction monies; the article's title refers to the types of monies they can handle.

The same article gives the council's view of how a consumer should pay. It encourages consumers to pay the relevant payee directly, through what it calls verifiable means, and gives three examples: bank transfers, PayNow and crossed cheques. It says consumers should not pass money through the agent, whether in cash or by a transfer to the agent's bank account. Commission follows the same logic in reverse: it is paid to the estate agent, meaning the company, and not to or through the individual salesperson.

CPF savings never pass through the buyer

Savings in a CPF Ordinary Account are the least visible money in the chain. The CPF Board's page on using CPF to buy a home, updated on 6 July 2026, lists what they may cover: the downpayment, the housing loan, and stamp and legal fees among them. Its terms and conditions for the CPF Housing Scheme, updated on 7 September 2026, say how the money travels.

The central clause is short. Savings withdrawn for a property are paid to the developer, the Housing and Development Board, the sellers, town councils or other entities the CPF Board considers appropriate. They are not paid to the member. A buyer never receives the cash and forwards it; the CPF Board moves it to the party owed.

The terms describe the route in four parts:

1. The member applies to the CPF Board to withdraw the savings, and does so through lawyers, supplying the documents the Board requires.
2. The member pays the balance of the purchase price in cash first. The terms make that payment a condition of release.
3. The CPF Board releases the savings to the developer, the Housing and Development Board or the seller. It may appoint a lawyer to disburse the money for completion, and the member bears that lawyer's costs.
4. A charge in favour of the CPF Board attaches to the property immediately upon release.

For a resale flat the application step looks different on screen. MyNiceHome says the buyer withdraws CPF savings online once the financial plan has been confirmed on My Flat Dashboard.

The terms also close a door that buyers sometimes expect to find open. Savings cannot be used to reimburse personal payments the member has already made to the Housing and Development Board in a flat purchase, or to developers or sellers in a private one. Cash paid in cannot later be swapped for CPF money on those lines.

At the HDB counter: cash, CPF, cashier's order, NETS

The Housing and Development Board is a party or a gatekeeper in every flat purchase, and its guidance names its channels more plainly than any other source read here.

For a resale flat, MyNiceHome sets out the sequence. The two sides submit the resale application on the HDB Flat Portal. The Board accepts it within 28 working days of receiving a complete application. Documents are ready about three weeks after acceptance and are endorsed on My Flat Dashboard. After endorsement, the buyer makes the initial payment in cash, CPF Ordinary Account savings or both, any CPF housing grant included. Approval follows about two weeks later, and completion is usually about eight weeks after acceptance.

At the completion appointment the guide becomes specific. The part of the balance that neither CPF savings nor the loan covers, together with any stamp fees still outstanding, is paid in cash by cashier's order, NETS or both. The guide mentions neither personal cheques nor PayNow at that stage, and it mentions no credit card.

For a new flat, MyNiceHome's guide to buying from the Board, also updated on 29 June 2026, lists the option fee at booking as S$2,000 for a four-room flat or larger, S$1,000 for a three-room flat and S$500 for a two-room Flexi flat or a Community Care Apartment, and lists it as cash without naming a channel. The downpayment at the signing of the Agreement for Lease is in cash, CPF savings or both, and the balance at key collection comes from cash, CPF savings or the housing loan. Booking, signing and key collection are each by appointment, in person, at HDB Hub.

Stamp duty and legal fees: who is paid

Two costs sit beside the price: buyer's stamp duty and the legal fees. The CPF Board's April 2026 guide says both can be paid from Ordinary Account savings.

The guide gives the duty as a tiered rate: 1 per cent on the first S$180,000 of the price, 2 per cent on the next S$180,000, 3 per cent on the next S$640,000 and 4 per cent on the next S$500,000. Its own worked example is a four-room resale flat at S$700,000. The first tier gives S$1,800, the second S$3,600, and the remaining S$340,000 at 3 per cent gives S$10,200, which makes S$15,600. Set beside the S$5,000 deposit cap, the example shows the scale: the duty on that flat is a little over three times the largest deposit the option form allows.

How the duty reaches the tax authority depends on who is acting. In a resale flat purchase, MyNiceHome says stamp fees still outstanding at completion are paid by cashier's order, NETS or both. For a purchase handled by a private lawyer with a bank loan, the CPF Board's guide estimates the lawyer's fee at about S$2,500 to S$3,000 on average, payable in cash or from CPF savings. The pages read for this guide do not describe the payment screens of the tax authority's stamping portal, so the options a payer sees there are left out.

FAST: instant, but capped at S$200,000

Behind an ordinary transfer between two Singapore banks sits FAST, short for Fast and Secure Transfer. The Association of Banks in Singapore describes it, in questions and answers updated on 23 July 2026, as an electronic funds transfer service that moves Singapore dollars between accounts at participating banks and non-bank financial institutions almost instantly. It was launched on 17 March 2014, and non-bank financial institutions gained access on 8 February 2021.

The figure that matters for property is the ceiling. The association gives the limit as up to S$200,000 per transaction, and adds that this is subject to daily, monthly or annual limits and to any lower maximum the customer's own bank or institution imposes. A bank's page shows the same number from the other side: DBS Bank's page on local transfers, read in October 2026 and carrying no date beyond a 2026 footer, states a maximum of S$200,000 for a FAST transfer and advises customers to review their daily limit.

A worked example shows what the ceiling means, on assumed figures. Suppose the cash part of a completion payment is S$450,000. At S$200,000 a transfer, that sum cannot travel in fewer than three FAST payments: two of S$200,000 and one of S$50,000. Whether three such transfers can leave one account in a day is a question of that bank's daily limit, which the association's document leaves to each institution.

The association's document also explains a design choice with consequences for large sums. A FAST transfer is addressed by the recipient's account number; the recipient's name is for reference only. Because the money is credited almost at once, a transfer keyed to a wrong account has already arrived. The association's instruction for that case is to inform the sending bank immediately, which will investigate and work with the receiving institution to return the funds, and may ask for a police report.

The lower rows explain why sums above the FAST ceiling still move by older routes. DBS Bank describes MEPS as a same-day transfer between banks, available at its branches, with a cut-off of 2pm on weekdays and a fee of S$20. The same page describes a cashier's order as a cheque issued by the bank and payable to the recipient the customer names, at S$3 each, ordered in its online banking service, and either posted or collected by the customer in person.

PayNow: a name on top of FAST

PayNow is not a separate rail. The Association of Banks in Singapore describes it as a service that sends Singapore dollars instantly through FAST, with one difference: the sender does not need the recipient's bank or account number. The recipient is identified by a mobile number, an identity card or foreign identification number, or a virtual payment address. The service started on 10 July 2017, is free for retail customers and runs every day of the year. The association's page lists 23 participating banks and six major payment institutions.

For a property payment the business version matters more. PayNow Corporate, whose launch the association announced on 13 August 2018, lets entities receive money against their unique entity number. The association states that these entities may not add a surcharge for consumers who pay this way.

The feature that separates PayNow from a plain FAST transfer is the check on the name. The association's guidance is that the sender verifies the recipient's name is correct before confirming. That is the opposite of FAST by account number, where the name is only a reference. The association has tightened this further: its release of 29 April 2026 announced that the nickname feature, which let a registered user display a chosen name, would end on 6 June 2026 to strengthen protection against impersonation scams.

On limits the association's page is silent. It gives no per-transfer or daily figure for PayNow, though the title of one of its releases, dated 28 September 2020, refers to a higher default limit for ad hoc transactions. What can be said from the pages read is that PayNow travels through FAST and that each bank sets its own limits within it.

Corporate cheques are on a countdown

The one instrument in this guide with an end date is the corporate cheque in Singapore dollars. The timetable comes from a joint release of the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Association of Banks in Singapore dated 5 December 2024, which extended the deadline for banks to cease processing corporate cheques by one year, to 31 December 2026. The reason given was that companies needed more time to become familiar with electronic payment modes. On 10 October 2026, that left 82 days.

The last two steps carry practical detail that only the banks' pages give. UOB's business page, read on 10 October 2026, says that Singapore dollar corporate cheques must be deposited with it by 11:30am on 31 December 2026, that from 1 January 2027 all banks stop processing them regardless of the date of issue, and that branch encashment stops on the same day. DBS Bank's page gives its own cut-off as 11am on 31 December 2026. The joint release had already asked payees to present corporate cheques well before the deadline. One caution on the source: according to the writer's reading notes, the overview text of UOB's page showed years one earlier in places than its headline dates; the dates given here are the headline ones, which match the joint release.

UOB's page also addresses what happens to a cheque that misses the cut-off or is rejected. It says the payee needs to arrange another form of payment with the payer, and that the Bills of Exchange Act continues to apply, leaving the payee's rights unchanged. That is the bank's statement of the position, not a ruling. The same page lists a clearing charge of S$0.75 for each Singapore dollar cheque a business issues and the same for each one it deposits. As a worked example on an assumed volume, a firm that issued 40 cheques in a month would pay S$30 in issuance charges for them. The page does not say when the charge began.

A corporate cheque drawn in 2026 has a last morning at the bank. A personal cheque for an option fee does not.

What stays: personal cheques, cashier's orders, deferred payments

The end of corporate cheques is not the end of paper. The joint release of 5 December 2024 says three things continue. Retail cheques, meaning those issued by individuals, remain available. Cashier's orders remain available to both corporate and retail customers. So do cheques in United States dollars. The release adds that major retail banks continue to waive cheque service fees for seniors, and that a customer aged 60 or above as of 31 December 2025 keeps that eligibility afterwards.

This is why the paper instruments in the first table are unaffected for an individual buyer. The cheque the Housing and Development Board prefers for an option fee is, for an individual buyer, a retail cheque in the release's terms. The cashier's order named for completion at the Board's appointment is on the list of what stays.

The release also introduced two services meant for the uses cheques served. An electronic deferred payment, or EDP, is for a payment dated in the future: the money is deducted from the payer when the payee presents it. EDP+ is for transactions that need more certainty: the money is deducted at once, on issuance. Both are reached through digital banking and use PayNow to identify the payee. They were due to launch in mid-2025 with the seven banks the authority treats as domestically systemically important: Citibank, DBS Bank, HSBC, Maybank, OCBC Singapore, Standard Chartered Bank and UOB. None of the pages read gives limits, validity periods or fees for the two services, or reports whether they are used for property payments.

What the pages read do not settle

Several parts of the subject could not be confirmed, and a reader relying on them would want the source itself.

The size of the option fee and the deposit in a private resale was not read on any page in this session; only the payee rule and the cheque suffix were. The payment options on the tax authority's stamping portal were not read. No page described how a bank releases a housing loan to the seller's lawyers at completion, so that step is absent from this guide.

On the Housing and Development Board's channels, the guide relies on MyNiceHome and on the Board's notes on the option to purchase. MyNiceHome names cash, CPF savings, cashier's orders and NETS. It lists the option fee for a new flat as cash without naming a channel, and whether the Board's counters or portal accept other electronic methods is not stated there.

PayNow limits are set by each bank and were not found on the association's page. The fees and cut-off times quoted for MEPS, cashier's orders and cheque clearing are those of the single bank named in each case and may differ elsewhere.

Finally, the joint release of December 2024 says retail cheques continue, and mentions a public consultation by the Monetary Authority of Singapore that closed on 17 January 2025. What that consultation concluded was not read. The position on personal cheques given here is the one stated in that release and nothing later.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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