People in Asia will soon have a neater, faster option to send money to a friend via a mobile wallet app.
But surprisingly, it doesn’t come from a bank or a payments company – it comes from Grab, South Asia’s leading on-demand transportation and mobile payments platform.
Grab, Uber’s biggest competitor in Southeast Asia, on Wednesday (30/8) announced users will have the ability to transfer funds from the app wallet between users freed from charge.
They can do that by sending money to a mobile number registered with Grab or by scanning a friend’s QR code in person.
However, until the tip of the yr, it’s also possible to spend money on purchases at other merchants through GrabPay, similar to those within the food, retail, and entertainment industries.
Singapore is the primary country where Grab plans to check this payment feature beyond transportation.
“Today, users can send money to one another; in the approaching months they are going to have the ability to make use of GrabPay to purchase food or other goods and services in stationary stores,” said Jason Thompson, head of GrabPay, statement.
Grab pronounces it’ll bring on board 1,000 small merchants from Singapore who will have the ability to pay by scanning their QR codes.
In Singapore, we’ve electronic payments, but there are too many schemes and systems – inconvenient for consumers and expensive for businesses. #not enough pic.twitter.com/GRXwWJIkeW
— Lee Hsien Loong (@leehsienloong) August 20, 2017
This could promote cashless adoption in cash-dependent Southeast Asia. Street vendors proceed to see infrastructure and bank fees barriers to cashless transactions. The issue was also raised by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in his speech on the National Day rally on August 20.
According to Penguin Value, to just accept a bank card, a street vendor would must use a retail system that accepts MasterCard or Visa and pay a commission of 1 to three percent on each transaction.
On the opposite hand, digital wallets similar to Alipay and Wechat have revolutionized the Chinese market with a straightforward QR code scanner and far lower fees lower than 1 percent as he quotes Possibility of mashing.
Grab has not yet announced its merchant fee structure. But if it’s acceptably low for a small retailer, it could really help free users from carrying money around.
In Grab’s case, the market advantage it has gained with its 1,000 merchants in Singapore (and sure many more within the region) could further entice users to make use of the app for purposes beyond hailing rides.
Grab says it already has about 72% of the private ride-sharing market and 95% of the taxi market in Southeast Asia, where it competes with Uber in seven countries.
It also processes 1 billion payment transactions per yr for ridesharing, but needs to organize to quickly add merchants to that load.
Thompson said: “We consider Grab is probably the most widely used consumer apps and has the potential to drive mass adoption of mobile payments in Singapore and across Southeast Asia.”
While the country continues to be searching for a option to go cashless, Grab has already come out of the gates. It will likely be interesting to see who’s next on its tail
