Displaying items by tag: mobile payments

WhatsApp has moved one step closer to launching its payment business in India by setting up local data storage facilities, according to India's The Economic Times. As a condition of market entry, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) requires digital payment providers to first set up local data storage facilities and then submit an audit report to the central bank. Market insiders say that WhatsApp Payments is expected to go live with its Unified Payments Interface-based service with ICICI Bank. Services through Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and SBI are likely to follow, they say.

The Vietnamese mobile wallet Vimo and point-of-sale provider mPOS are merging to form a new entity called NextPay, which will seek to raise US$30 million to expand domestically and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. NextPay's objective is to combine online and offline solutions into one with Vimo as the online channel and mPOS as the offline one.

Published in Asia Payments Research

Pi Pay is the largest digital wallet in Cambodia's nascent fintech space, having processed 7.5 million transactions of $170 million as of March. The company has 250,000 users and 3,500 merchant partners.

Founded in mid-2017, Pi Pay is unique among Cambodia's fintechs for its strategic partnerships with traditional financial institutions and internet financiers alike. Among its key partners are Alipay, WeChat Pay and Korea's KB Kookmin Bank. The tie-ups with Alipay and WeChat Pay allow Pi Pay to tap the sizable Chinese tourist market in Cambodia. By 2020, Cambodia expects roughly 2 million Chinese visitors per year. Partnering with Kookmin Bank gives Pi Pay access to the 76,000 users of the banks' digital platform Liiv in Cambodia. Last year, Liiv processed overseas wire transfers of $17 million and extended $19 million in loans.

Published in Asia Payments Research

In Taiwan, Japanese messaging app Line has led the ascendant mobile payments market on the back of its strong brand cachet. Among Taiwan's population of 23 million, there are 20 million Line users. More than 6 million Taiwanese have its payment app Line Pay on their handsets. Line is probably the only app with a shot at becoming the WeChat of Taiwan.

Published in Asia Payments Research

As a near developed country with high financial inclusion, Malaysia is an outlier in Southeast Asia. Like its rich neighbor Singapore, Malaysia's need for fintech is less pressing than poorer underbanked countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia or Myanmar. Fintech platforms can facilitate smoother banking for Malaysians, but aren't viewed as a necessity in the country yet. After all, 92% of the population has a bank account and credit cards have a strong foothold.

Axiata Group's Boost digital wallet, established in early 2018, is one of the first Malaysian fintechs to have a demonstrable impact on the country's financial system. Boost's executives say that it is Malaysia's premier digital wallet, with 4 million registered users and 80,000 merchant touchpoints. From January-December 2018, Boost users' average monthly transactions grew fourteenfold, the company says.

Published in Asia Payments Research

Singapore is an ascendant digital finance hub, in 2018 attracting $365 million in fintech investment. That investment was double the amount raised a year earlier. Despite its small size, the city-state is still the No. 5 fintech market in APAC by funds raised.

Published in Asia Payments Research

Japan is the world's No. 3 economy and known for its tech prowess, yet the Japanese people prefer cash over other forms of payment. Just one in five transactions in Japan are cashless. Some analysts say that Japan can learn from its giant neighbor China when it comes to cashless payments. In less than a decade, China has gone from cash reliant to nearly cash free. In 2017, nearly half of the world's digital payments were made in China.

Published in Asia Payments Research

It wasn't so long ago that China's tech firms were panned as second-rate copycats. The best example might be Baidu, the search giant that is often less effective than Google in Chinese-language searches.

Tencent's WeChat messaging app changed the equation, establishing a mobile-internet ecosystem that is the envy of its global competitors. WeChat has over 1 billion monthly users (mostly in mainland China) and is the No. 5 most used app globally. Its payment platform has expanded to 25 countries. Thanks in part to WeChat business Tencent had a strong third quarter in 2018. Revenue reached $11.7 billion, up 24% over a year earlier, while profits rose 20% year-on-year to $3.4 billion.

Published in Asia Payments Research

If at first you don't succeed in buying a money-transfer company, try again. Just make sure you go shopping in a friendly jurisdiction. That strategy paid off for the Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial as it acquired the UK's WorldFirst for $700 million in mid February.

Published in China Banking Research

On September 18th 2018 the MAS launched the Singapore Quick Response Code (SGQR). Within the next year, 27 different mobile wallet providers including PayNow, NETS, GrabPay, Liquid Pay, and Singtel Dash will incorporate the new standardised code. The SGQR is the first of its kind globally and represents a significant change to the e-payment landscape. Interoperability is seen as a key infrastructural requirement for mobile payments and will have several impacts on new and incumbent firms in the market. 

Published in Asia Payments Research
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