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Streamlining Payments for HDB’s Sales Launches
How GovWallet serves as a secure, WOG-ready payment intermediary to ensure reliability, a single source of truth, and operational efficiency at scale.
Impact at a Glance
99.9%
Transaction accuracy achieved
10x
Reduction of duplicate transactions
2 Weeks to 3 Days
Reduction in refund processing time
5 Months
Time to full deployment from initial exploration to successful pilot
The Challenge
High Transaction Volumes Require High Reliability and Scalability
The Housing & Development Board (HDB) manages three major sales launches annually, each generating between 20,000 and 40,000 transactions within a single launch window. To ensure good service delivery and customer experience, HDB sought to modernise its payment infrastructure to better support the scale, speed and accuracy that applicants expect during flat application submissions. 3 operational priorities drove the review:
- Scalability: HDB needed a payment platform that could handle sharp surges in transaction volumes during sales launches, without contending for shared system resources.
- Reconciliation efficiency: Duplicate transactions required lengthy reconciliation processes of up to 2 weeks, adding to administrative workload during and after each sales launch.
- Vendor flexibility: Onboarding of new PSPs (Payment Service Providers) require significant integration effort, limiting HDB’s ability to adopt new providers quickly.
The Solution
A Cloud-Native Payment Intermediary
In July 2025, HDB adopted GovWallet as a secure, cloud-based payment orchestrator sitting between HDB and its PSPs.
Reliability and Scalability
The cloud-based architecture scales dynamically to handle surges in transaction volumes during sales launches, without affecting other systems.
Single Source of Truth
GovWallet centralises transaction data, providing a unified view that supports compliance and financial governance.
Streamlined Refunds
Improved data flow and automated duplication detection mean that when duplicate transactions do occur, they are identified and refunded within 3 working days (previously up to 2 weeks), freeing up time and manpower for higher-value work.
Vendor flexibility
HDB can now onboard new payment services with significantly less integration effort.
The Results
HDB's Journey to Seamless Flat Application Payments
The July 2025 pilot delivered immediate results. The rate of duplicate transactions fell from around 10 to just 1 per 10,000 transactions. Automated payment reconciliation also translated into around 2 weeks of manpower savings per sales launch. HDB has transitioned from a resource intensive, vendor-dependent setup to a future-ready payment framework that delivers a smoother experience for flat applicants. Content and photo courtesy of HDB.
Transaction Accuracy
99.9%
Achieved
Duplicate Transactions
10x
Reduction
Development Time
5 Months
From exploration to pilot launch
Refund Process
2 Weeks to 3 Days
Reduction in processing time
