36 Proven Ways That You Can Earn Money Online In Singapore 2022


I have always had a great interest in making money online. You can work anytime and anywhere and the number of opportunities to do it at the comfort of your home is just endless and only limited by your creativity and willingness to pick up new skills.

Here is a quick snapshot of some of the top 10 ideas among the 36 listed below

  1. Dropshipping
  2. Starting and monetize your own website using ads
  3. Become an Affiliate Marketer
  4. YouTube Content Creators
  5. Buying Dividend Stocks
  6. Flipping Niche Content Websites
  7. Trading Options
  8. Ecommerce Business With Amazon FBA
  9. Selling Your Own E-Book with Amazon Self-Publishing
  10. Cryptocurrency trading

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link.

For your convenience, I have compiled a comprehensive list of actionable ideas that even beginners can start earning a side income or even become your full-time income.

Read on if you are keen to find out more!

36 Interesting Ways of Making Money Online in Singapore

1. Dropshipping

Well well well, one of my favorites and one of the profitable business models I have started in the past.  The sexy thing about dropshipping is that you are like a middleman and earns a profit by facilitating a sale between buyers & your suppliers without owning a product.

One of the most common ways of starting a dropshipping business is starting a Shopify store and research the hottest selling products in Singapore by checking out the biggest eCommerce platforms like Qoo10, Lazada, and Shopee. Run Facebook ads campaigns to drive targeted traffic to your Shopify store and Kaching $$$!!

If you do not want to be reliant on Shopify you can also set up your own website using WordPress or rely on a turnkey website set up for you.

2. Become A Course Creator

If you have picked up skillsets in your day job or have a passion for a hobby like photography, you can create courses on popular platforms like Udemy, Skillshare, Coursera, or even Fiverr.

Here is a brief strategy for you to get started on the above-mentioned platforms.

  1. Check out the guidelines and choose the platform you want to be in
  2. Create A Strategy For Your Online Course
  3. Film and Edit Your Course using video editor software like Filmora
  4. Upload your content and ensure it is within the guidelines and set a price
  5. Rinse and repeat as the more courses you upload the more your monthly residual income will increase

3. Become an Online Translator

Online Translator Salary
Data from Ziprecruiter.com

According to ZipRecruiter, the hourly rate for an online translator can range from $14/hr to $100/hr. You just need a laptop and a good internet connection to get things started.

If you are confident in your source language skills, it is time to get specialized training. Get yourself certified with an authorized association such as the American Translator Association and take a translator certification test.

To get started, you can find online translation jobs on free platforms like Proz.com, Upwork, or Fiverr.  For context-translation online resources for cross-referencing, you can consider using linguee.com.

4. Starting and monetize your own website using ads

Whether it is creating a brand for yourself or creating specific niche websites, the potential is huge. According to Jon Dykstra of fatstacks, if you like to earn a full time income blogging earning 4 to 5 digits a month and monetize 100% using Ads, a sweet spot for the site will be between 300 – 1k quality articles with keywords that are well researched, written and fulfil the search intent in Google search over a horizon of 3 years.

ezoic review

This is a screenshot taken from my Ezoic account.  The income is quite passive when you reach certain traffic levels for your site.

Here are some simplified steps to get you started

  1. Research and pick a niche that you know about or willing to learn about.
  2. Make sure the niche sufficient commercial products sold in the market which gives an indicator whether there are enough paying advertisers for your blog
  3. Sign up for a basic hosting plan like Bluehost which also provides a free domain name for the 1st year.
  4. Install WordPress and use a simple lightning-fast theme like Generatepress or Astra. (You can get the Acabado theme used for this site here)
  5. Research for low competition keywords and start writing. (Do note that this step is most crucial in deciding whether your blog can start ranking in google search and bring in organic traffic.)
  6.  Set aside time to write as many articles as possible weekly until you reach the sweet spot of 300 to 1k articles
  7. If you have extra cash and prefer to hire writers, you can consider finding them on Upwork or Fiverr. I use the blog recipe from income school when outsourcing to writers most of the time.
  8.  When your website starts having traffic, you can sign up for Adsense and monetise your site. When your website grows bigger, eventually you will be able to move up to other ad networks like Ezoic(they have recently removed the 10k min traffic threshold), Mediavine(Min traffic 50k and above/month), and Adthrive((Min traffic 100k and above/month)

5. Become A Full Time Writer

If you are starting a website part-time and still have a day job, you will at least have an income to cover your bills. However, if for some reason that you are unable to secure a day job, you can also consider becoming a full time writer.

Please understand that I am not asking you to lowball yourself for $7.50 per 1k words which are ridiculous in my opinion based on the standard of living in Singapore.

If you have specific expertise in a niche, you may be able to secure higher rates like $40 to $100 per 1k words in writeraccessproblogger. Most jobs posted are for big content sites that have traffic mainly from 1st tier countries like the US, Canada, UK and Australia that needs continuous content publishing to grow their business.

6. Become an Affiliate Marketer

When you have a site with growing traffic, affiliate marketing is another way that you can monetize your site.  In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is where you drive traffic from your site to a product or service and a sale took place. You earn a commission because you are the one that referred the traffic.

One of the most popular and easiest to convert affiliate marketing programs is Amazon affiliates. The main reason is that they sell everything under the sun and is a trusted platform for most buyers to make a purchase. You also earn a commission when amazon managed to upsell or cross-sell or products to your readers.

However, Amazon has a history of cutting rates and the most recent one actually took place when covid is raging at its peak.

Even though I am using it for most of my sites, I am starting to explore other affiliate networks like Shareasale and Flexoffers which offer higher commissions and a wide variety of affiliate programs conveniently housed in one account. It saves me a lot of headaches when tallying income for my websites on a monthly basis.

All these affiliate networks are free to sign up but you need to have a live website to join the programs in there.

7. Create a lead generation site and rent it out

If you have enough experience building a website from scratch, creating a lead generation site and rent to local businesses is also quite a lucrative way to monetize your site. The main benefit of doing this you only work on your website and rent it out to your clients and will not have to entertain strange calls at night.

For this to work, you have to find Great Rank and Rent Niches that small businesses will willingly pay for leads like property, insurance, funeral services, home renovation etc.

Setting Up Your Rank and Rent Website should include a contact us form and email list to collect leads. After that, you will just need to do keyword research for local search, write the content, set up a Google My Business Account, and you are good to go.

get google ranking ad

8. Being an Online Tutor

If you are a teacher or have taught tuitions to students in the past, this may be a viable option as demand for online tutors has exploded as more students are exposed to more online home-based learning caused by the pandemic.
There are also platform like Classgap that allows you to choose the subjects that you want to teach and you determine the price you want to earn per lesson.

9. YouTube Content Creators

Looking at how much Youtube is making from advertisers and USD$8.5 Billion being paid to content creators,  there is no shortage of cash for any Tom, Dick, or Harry willing to fork out the hard work and start their own youtube channel.

Before you start getting excited and hyped up to start your own channel and visualize yourself lying on the beach with beautiful babes or hunks all day long with all that passive cash coming to you month after month, do understand that it takes a lot of consistent hard work to create a successful youtube channel.

You don’t really need to have fancy gear and equipment from the start, maybe just your phone with a camera and a nice mic will do the trick. Try out the Miles Beckler 90 day challenge. If you still alive after the challenge then consider getting some good gear for your channel

10. Copywriting

Copywriting is the art and science of writing copy (words used on web pages, ads, promotional materials, etc.) that sells your product or service and convinces prospective customers to take action.

Good copywriters that write converting pages earn a big paycheque and are high in demand because they bring in lots of revenue for businesses.  If you are new to this, you can find several copywriting courses in Udemy and Coursera.

11. Virtual Assistant (VA)

If you are meticulous and good at completing repetitive adminstrative or routine tasks, you can consider offering your service at a Virtual Assistant (VA).

You should be able to find a job in common portals like Upwork, Fiverr, or Facebook groups.

However, do note that it is very competitive and saturated and unless you are providing a service that is quite unique, other VAs from developing countries may undercut your rates.

12. Freelance Web Development and Design

If you know about web programming languages like HTML, CSS, and Java, you can also try to list your services on platforms like Fiverr where you can take on projects from various clients around the world.

While there are thousands of developers on sites like Freelancer.com and Fiverr charging under $20/hour, there are also freelancers charging well over $100/hour.[Source]

Besides honing your programming technical skills, you will also need business skills to market yourself. If you are completely new to coding,  Freecodecamp, edX, and Khan Academy are some of the free online learning institutions that you can learn for free.

13. Part-Time or Full-Time Work At Local Company

Whether it is an online customer support role, or a telemarketer sales role, you should be able to find plenty of part-time jobs that allow you to work full time or on a part time basis.

You can check them out on major job portals like Jobstreet, Glassdoor, and Linkedin.

14. Patreon

Are you an expert or consultant in a particular niche or industry?

If you are able to provide valuable insights that are not available in the internet, why not monetise your premium content instead of offering it for free to the public.

Patreon is a way for you to get paid for content that you are already creating like Video, music, or written content. Top patreon content creators earn more than USD$200k per year.

It is a great way to build a following with unique content from you and you can build a pool of monthly paying subscribers without needing to build an email list funnel.

15. Selling Photographs Online

If your passion is in photography and has a knack for taking amazing pictures, you can sell them to major photography sites like Getty images, Istock  photos or Shutterstock.

Here is a list of sites that you can consider selling to and it is possible to fetch between $20 to $50 per photograph depending on the quality and work done.

16. Selling Used Items On Carousell

Selling Used Items On Carousell

If you are seeing things piling up in your bedroom or storeroom and you have not used it for the past 6 months, it is time to do some spring cleaning and recoup some of your losses.

No matter how strange the item was, as long as it is in good condition, you should just snap a few good pictures and list it on Carousell. I have sold many strange pieces of stuff that I thought is worthless.  You can just communicate with the buyer using the Carousell app and arrange to pick it up near your house.

This is also a good way to get rid of items so you can go on a shopping spree again.

17. Buying Dividend Stocks

Buying Dividend Stocks

If you love the feeling of having sporadic income being secretly sent to your bank account on a quarterly basis, you may like to consider getting dividend stocks. Gone are the days that you need big amounts of money to invest due to high commission rates.

You can easily buy 100 shares of a reit or penny stock you like without worrying about high commissions eating into your returns

Our Recommendation
The recent new brokerage firm Futu which is listed on the NASDAQ: FUTU allows you to invest in local or foreign stocks with temporary unlimited commission trading and also gives you 1 free Apple stock. You just need to deposit a min of 2700 SGD and make one trade within your account to be able to sell the stock and encash it.

You can sign up here and if you refer a friend they will also give you a free stock voucher

18. Pinterest Manager

Pinterest Manager

If you are good at creating beautiful pins to pique curiosity and eyeball from Pinterest users, there is a huge demand for a good Pinterest manager from many online media businesses.

It is not tough to get started as you can practice your  Pinterest design with a free tool like canva and your own website.

  1. Create several different pins for posts on your own website and add them into different boards.
  2. Schedule them in Pinterest itself or use a tool like tailwind
  3. Aim to schedule and pin between 10-15pins per day
  4. Do this for at least 5 months and track your performance
  5. Look at your google analytics account to analyse the % of traffic that is driven by Pinterest to your site.

If you are seeing 10-15% of organic traffic is from Pinterest, you can basically use this experience and start selling your services to other website owners.

19. Flipping Niche Content Websites

Website flipping has being ongoing for more than 10 years and is starting to gain popularity in Singapore and globally due to its high ROI and investors looking to park their money in high yield assets.

When I started in 2019, it is still possible to buy a website for 24x multiple of its monthly income. However, in 2021, the selling price for a niche content website is selling for between 37x – 45x multiples.

Check out one of my case studies on the process for the 1st website I buy, improve, and sold it to a buyer in flippa.

If you have not done this before and is a complete beginner, it is better to build a website from scratch to learn the ins & out of creating a profitable website.

Once you are ready with some capital on hand. Here are some places that you can find potential sites to buy and flip.

  1. Facebook groups
  2. Flippa
  3. Motion Invest
  4. Empire flippers
  5. Investors Club
  6. FE international

Do note that there are still risks when investing in websites as a google algorithm update or amazon affilate commission cut can easily reduce your website income and value instantly.

However, if done right, it is not uncommon for experienced website investors to create and sell sites for 10-12x of their initial capital invested.

20. Taking Online Surveys

Google Rewards paid survey
My friend recently recommended paid online surveys from google rewards.

You just need to take a quick survey and they will pay up to $1 to your PayPal account.

The frequency of the surveys is not consistent but the money earned should be enough to cover your monthly Netflix subscription.

Sorry iPhone users, it seems like they are only open to users using Android phones for now.

Another platform you can consider is Usertesting. According to their site, the number of opportunities you receive will depend on companies looking for contributors with your experience. You can earn $4 for every 5-minute test, $10 USD for every 20-minute test and between $30 USD to $120 USD for live interviews.

21. Freelance Game Developer

If you have an interest in games and have the interest to learn coding and create your own game, becoming a freelance game developer can be an option.
Unity is one of the most popular game development software used by many game developers in the world to create many popular games like Call of Duty, Mario Kart, Pokémon quest etc.
Good news for Singaporeans is that you can find good courses that teach how to create your own game in unity on Udemy and you can claim it from your skillsfuture credits.
Once you upload your game to IOS or Android, you will be able to monetize it either through ads or in-game purchases. Over time, you will be able to build a residual income as you own several games or may even be approached by big game developers to sell your game for a big payout.

22. Tik Tok Influencer

Another platform gaining traction for people wanting to build their followers and get paid. Typically, you can be paid in 2 ways. Once you sign up for their creator fund program and have 1500 followers, Tik Tok pays you between 2 and 4 cents per thousand views.
Based on the number of monthly views for the top 10 Tik Tok influencers in Singapore gets and using 3 cents per thousand views as calculation, they can earn between SGD$3k to more than SGD$22k per month just from Tik Tok creator fund program.
The other way you can get paid on TikTok is through LIVE stream gifts sent to you by your fans. And TikTok gets 50% profit from those gifts.

23. Print On Demand Dropshipping

Print On Demand Business
If you are good at graphics designs, you can consider signing up for a free account with Redbubble. The process is quite simple.
  1. Set up your free shop in Redbubble
  2. Check out what kind of design is popular in Redbubble and what kind of merchandise is underserved in the platform
  3. Start designing and upload your it to your store
  4. Apply it to all the applicable merchandise in Redbubble
  5.  Set your default pricing for your shop
  6. Start promoting your store
  7. Once a sale takes place, Redbubble will handle the whole process from printing on the merchandise to shipping out to your customers. You will get a cut
  8. Rinse and repeat

If you are not good at graphics design like me but have some creative ideas, you should be able to find good graphic designers in Fiverr within your budget.  Check out my store here which I outsourced the designs 100%.

24. Ecommerce Business With Amazon FBA

One of the most common business model you will have heard of from many gurus in Singapore. According to emarketer, Amazon Ecommerce market share is expected to exceed 40% in 2021. It just makes sense to utilize them to gain access to the US population of more than 330 million.

Here is a simplified step by step guide if you are keen to dip into your toes with Amazon FBA

  1. Use software like jungle scout to research the hottest selling products of your competitors.
  2. Find a supplier from alibaba.com that can help you manufacture and ship the products to your Amazon store
  3. Once the inventory arrives start pricing your product as competitively as possible so you can push up the rankings and get some useful reviews from happy customers
  4. Market the product through word of mouth, your own channels like website or youtube
  5. Slowly increase your price once sales start rolling in and rinse and repeat with other products
  6. You need some trial and error before you can find the winning selling product

One thing to take note of is that Amazon takes a cut for all your sales in their platform and you will also need to pay a monthly fee for using their warehouses in the US.

According to jungle scout, Nearly half (44%) of Amazon sellers make from $1,000-$25,000/month, which could mean annual sales from $12,000-$300,000.

25. Trading Options

options trading
If you are not heard of options in stocks, it gives an investor the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a stock at an agreed upon price and date. [Source]
The only difference I am doing here is writing puts for shares I do not own and selling calls for stocks I own to collect a premium.
For example, I write a put at $4 for a stock when the price is $3 and the premium is $1. When I write the put, I get to pocket the premium and as long as the stock share price exceeds $4 when the option expires, I get to keep the premium for free. However, if the option expires and the stock price is less than $4, I will need to buy the stock.
I only do this once a month and only risk money that I can afford to lose. You can sign up for an account with FUTU or TD Ameritrade if you are keen to explore.

26. Robo Advisor

This is gaining prominence in recent years and one I felt does benefit investors who have a long-term investment horizon.  Even though I know there are several players that are active in the Singapore market, in the end, I am sticking to SYFE.
Here are some reasons why I am using them for part of my investment long term
  • They have a portfolio that allows me to gain access to the global market and they readjust my investments using AI based on my own risk profile.
  • They have great customer support and even done follow up call with me after I have gotten the account
  • Yearly management fee is only between 0.4% to 0.65% which does not eats into my annual returns.
  • The process of depositng money is seamless and can be done just from my mobile phone. Once i setup up the recurring payment monthly, everything is just automated for me.
syfe review
This is a screenshot of a portfolio which I setup using my Son’s hongbao money and his savings from his allowances. I also took this chance to impart him on the value of personal finance and compounding interest.
If you do not have an account with them, you can sign up using my referral code SRPSGC598 to enjoy a 6 months fee waiver for your 1st 30k investment.

27. Freelance Video Editor

As there are more content creators on platforms like Youtube or Tiktok, there is definitely a demand for video editors to help them lessen their workload and beautify the videos before uploading them. And I have not included demand from local property agents trying to sell multi-million houses using Hollywood cinematics.
A typical video editing can take hours which are just not available for most popular content creators and they are willing to pay top dollars for it.
A quick glance when doing a search in Upwork for freelance video editors shows an hourly rate of between USD$35 to USD$65/hour.

28. Selling Your Own E-Book with Amazon Self-Publishing

Even though it seems straightforward, there are 4 major factors that will determine if the launch of your book is successful on amazon.
1. The content of your book and how fast you can write it
2. How you publish your ebook on Amazon
3. How do you market your book so it can surge to the top seller within a short while
4. How many books do you consistently publish
It will require some trial and error until you get a winning formula. However, if everything goes south and no one is keen on your ebook, the only sacrifice most probably will be your sweat equity.
Our Recommendation
If you do not have time to write the books yourself but have some spare capital on hand. You can consider hiring ghostwriters to write on your behalf. We recommend Stefan James Amazon publishing course which will teach you how to find an underserved niche, outsource the writing, and market it in Amazon to become bestsellers.
Once you are good to go, you can sign up for a free publisher account here.

29. Have Your Own Podcast

Even though it is not as popular as blogging and video marketing, podcast still has some value in building a pool of loyal followers or a brand name for a niche you specialize in.

Here is how you can start a simple podcast channel

  1. You do need some good basic gear like microphone, recording, computer and audio editing software like audacity to get started.
  2. Choose and narrow into a niche that you are passionate about
  3. Record consistently to gain a strong following
  4. Apply and ensure you get into apple podcasts
  5. Create premium content so you can start to monetise your podcasts

Here is a list of places where you can also host your podcasts.

30. User Testing For Websites

If you are able to perform certain tasks, like finding a product in an online store and going through the checkout process, and express your thoughts constructive feedback on how you expect the website to work,  you can consider generating some side income as a user tester.

According to Userfeel, for each test that you conduct after the initial qualification test, you get paid $10. You receive payment after approval, about one week after the test, via PayPal or Amazon Gift Cards.

31. Transcribe Audios and Interviews

If you are looking to work for 10-20 hours a week and earn a decent side income, you may like to consider becoming a freelance transcriber. What you need is just being able to have decent language skills and able to type, write, and edit.

We recommend going through the 7 day mini course from Janet to see if this is something worth pursuing.

Here is a list of places that can land you some transcription jobs.

1. Gotranscript
2. TranscribeMe
3. 3Play Media
4. Net Transcripts
5. Rev Transcription Jobs

32. Cryptocurrency trading

Looking at how the price of bitcoin has skyrocketed recently I definitely cannot exclude this out. Bitcoin prices have always being volatile and its price can even be affected by Elon Musk’s tweet. However, there are also some local influencers that are firm believers that it can reach a price of more than 100k USD in the future.

If you feel that it is a good place to park some of your fiat currencies that is losing value due to excessive printings from governments in the world, you can consider some of the reputable cryptocurrency exchanges below

Binance is a Cayman Islands-domiciled cryptocurrency exchange that provides a platform for trading various cryptocurrencies founded in 2017. As of April 2021, Binance was the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world in terms of the trading volume.

  1. As Binance has been banned from Singapore, I have shifted my cryptocurrency trading to crypto.com. It is easier to use and I can trade freely using my mobile phone. Use my referral code 4ysr2ajpyr and we both get $25 USD 🙂
  2. Coinbase is another reputable cryptocurrency exchange that is listed on the NASDAQ and has the highest trading volume of cryptocurrencies in the US

Other reputable cryptocurrency exchanges will include Gemini, Zengo and Paxful.

[Related Article: How Do I Start Trading Cryptocurrency Singapore(4 Simple Steps)]

33. Cryptocurrency Mining(Social DeFi)

Don’t worry. I am not asking you to buy expensive hardware to mine for bitcoin. That is a thing in the past. In recent years,  3rd generation cryptocurrency platforms called DeFI are popping up.  From August 2020 to Nov 2021, according to DeFi Pulse, the amount of money presently locked into various DeFi services have grown from over $6.8 billion to the current $111.51 billion.

The question is how do you participate so as not the miss the bitcoin boat again? Here are 2 reputable social DeFi platforms that I have participated in recently. The great thing is you can mine these DeFi coins for free that are not yet listed on any major cryptocurrency exchanges. Here are 2 I have recently participated

  1. Star Network(Use the referral code to boost: jaydentan)
  2. Pi Network(Use my username chunyangtan as your invitation code)

Please note that you will need my referral code to join as it is not open to the public. They will stop creating the coins once they reach a certain number of users. You will enjoy the first-mover advantage when you join earlier. Here is a video that will share with you on how DeFi is taking on Wall Street.

34. Offering SEO and Digital Marketing services to Small Businesses

If you are skilled in ranking sites using SEO, have a strong track record of successful Facebook ads campaigns, or have experience running various social platforms for companies to increase their brand awareness, you can also consider cold calling SMEs in Singapore and offer your services as a freelancer.
Alternatively, you can also join an agency, build up your own client base before going the freelancer route.

35. Selling baked goods online

Have not done this before but heard from my female friend that you can basically sell home baked good online. You just need an account in Carousell, Facebook, Instagram, or even telegram!
The worst thing to happen is to eat and giveaway your baked goods if sales are bad.

36. Selling self-made goods online

selling self made products

If you are good at making self made goods like grill gift sets, cutting board,s or even wood art, you can consider selling your personalized products on Etsy.

Depending on what you are selling, some buyers in there are willing to pay more than USD$100 if your product is really interesting and unique.

Related Questions and Other FAQs

How Can I Make Fast Money Online?

Besides online gambling and lottery, some of the options to make money fast online will be doing options trading, stocks trading, and Cryptocurrency trading. However, do note that high returns always encompasses high risk.

How Can I Make $1000 A Month?

You can buy a $1000 cash-generating website from places like flippa, motioninvest or investors club for around 36k to 40k USD. Make sure its revenue stream is diversified to reduce your risk.

How Can I Make $100 A Day?

It is possible to earn $100 A day from creating niche websites and monetize fully using Ads network like Ezoic. Lets say the earning per thousand views(EPMV) for your particular niche is $20.

To make $3000 a month will require a traffic of ($3000/$20)* 1000 = 150k page views a month

Lets say on average your article brings in 300 visitors a month, you will need 150k/300 = 500 articles for your site to make $100 a day.

Do online jobs really pay?

Yes they do. It is riskier to work for clients that you find privately from Facebook groups or other channels than from reputable platforms like freelancers.com, Upwork and fiverr.
The main reason is because a reputable platform allows you to file a dispute for work done and client refuses to release payment. Once you find a good-paying master, try to work with them as long as possible.

Conclusion

There are many ways to make money online. However, do note that for most of the ideas to work, it requires a lot of hard work and also trial and error.
If you want to go the safe route, just stay in your day job and do these on the side. You can always quit when the income exceeded what you are earning now.
If you are looking for the next get rich quick scheme, besides lottery or casino, do your due diligence. If something is too good to be true, it most probably is.

Jayden Tan

In 2019, Jayden bought his first website and flipped it 10 months later for a small profit. Later on, he learned blogging and content sites can be turned into a great business. Ever since he has been an investor & researcher in the digital space while helping others build financial independence through the internet.

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