In more detail
CASE and NCCC signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on 31 October 2025. The aim is to strengthen cooperation in handling cross-border consumer complaints for Singaporean and Malaysian travelers who purchase goods and services in the two countries.
The process of complaint resolution is as follows: a Singaporean traveler with a consumer dispute with a Malaysian business will first lodge a complaint with CASE. CASE will then refer the complaint to NCCC, which will assist them in negotiating and mediating with the Malaysian business with the aim of amicable resolution. A similar process applies to Malaysian travelers that have a consumer dispute with a Singaporean business.
This MOU comes amid the backdrop of frequent, short-term visits by Singaporeans to Malaysia for reasons ranging from work to leisure, a phenomenon that has arisen due to strong geographical and historical ties between the two countries. In the first half of 2025 alone, Singaporeans made more than 10 million visits to Malaysia.
The signing of this latest MOU also follows an earlier agreement concluded in March 2025 between CASE and Thailand’s Office of Consumer Protection Board (OCPB). In the same vein, the MOU between CASE and OCPB also seeks to strengthen consumer protection by referring individual consumer complaints through the cooperation of the two consumer protection boards.
In this announcement, CASE further indicated that it hopes to establish more similar collaborations with other consumer associations in the region.
Key takeaways
In a bid to strengthen consumer protection and confidence in both countries, Singapore and Malaysia’s consumer protection boards have signed an MOU to establish a channel for the referral of cross-border consumer complaints. Companies with regional businesses should therefore note the increasingly robust consumer protection mechanisms that provide consumers with more forms of recourse in the event of a consumer complaint.
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