Singaporeans have given out almost $2.7 million in DBS's digital red packets

For most Singaporeans, the Chinese New Year period is known for a great many things - reunion dinners, mandarin oranges, a spot of gambling but most notably, the gifting of red packets (or "ang baos", as the Chinese call them).

And for a practice that's so deeply rooted in tradition, you'd expect people to keep doing it the way it has been for hundreds of years.

Wrong. According to DBS, it seems that Singaporeans, even the older generation, are slowly opening up to using digital alternatives for a lot of things, including red packets.

In fact, as of 4 February, we've given out almost $2.7 million dollars worth of money via DBS' QR Gift cards over CNY 2020. That's almost double last year's $1.5 million!

Meanwhile, the DBS eGift, or eAng Bao as it was formerly known, drew over 16,000 new users this CNY, coupled with an almost 20 per cent increase in the total transacted amount from last year.

Such statistics are a good sign, as they show Singaporeans are becoming increasingly receptive to digital methods. Of course, there are other potential benefits from going cashless in this regard.

DBS estimates that if each customer reduced their cash withdrawals by even a mere 1 per cent, the total carbon emission savings would be equal to almost 600 trees!

Last but not least, DBS has also brought back the red-packet recycling bin initiative from last year, and so far, the collected red packets weigh a whopping 390 kilograms!

That's already an impressive figure, but it gets even more so when you consider that it was all collected in less than a week.

Therefore, as part of their efforts to reduce waste, they'll be keeping the bins around at all DBS/POSB full-service branches across the island. So, if you've got no use for your red packets and QR Gift cards anymore, just drop them in.

This article was first published in Hardware Zone.