The Rise of Digital Payments: How Grab Is Enhancing The Consumer Experience
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The pandemic has given an unexpected boost towards the spending habits of Malaysians with more people now opting to embrace digital payments than ever before.
In 2020, the average number of digital payments a person made in a year increased to 170 from 150 in the previous year, with e-wallets being the preferred payment method among consumers in Southeast Asia.
Grab Malaysia’s Head of GrabPay Priyanka Madan thinks that with digital payments being a focal point of Malaysia’s digitalisation journey, it has also been one of the easiest methods to adopt.
It is imperative for businesses to ride on this transformation wave and start rethinking their payment strategies to provide greater flexibility and a more seamless experience for their consumers. This would ultimately help to reduce friction and increase stickiness among consumers in digital payments.
Grab Malaysia’s Head of GrabPay Priyanka Madan
Easier, smarter and more rewarding ways to pay
As a homegrown tech company, she said that Grab have played a part in empowering Malaysians to embrace the digital economy – including the introduction of GrabPay Wallet in 2018 and driving its adoption to provide seamless and convenient payments solutions for merchants and consumers.
Since its launch, we have introduced various features such as Save Using Points, and Pay with GrabPay (online and offline payments) to provide a more rewarding and affordable cashless lifestyle – all within one app.
Grab Malaysia’s Head of GrabPay Priyanka Madan
More features have also been added to the payment platform, with multiple payment methods allowing consumers to enjoy more flexibility, which she said makes every amount spent more rewarding with GrabRewards, enabling consumers to save more.
With GrabRewards, consumers can use their accumulated points to redeem exclusive deals or vouchers to offset payments at their favourite GrabPay merchant stores. With the Save Using Points feature, over 400 million GrabRewards Points have been used by GrabPay consumers to offset their bill payments in Q2 2021.
Grab Malaysia’s Head of GrabPay Priyanka Madan
Grab’s latest payments offering is PayLater – which allows users to split the payment into four monthly instalments instead to allow consumers to manage their finances responsibly.
Our internal data showed that over 80% of consumers use PayLater as a budgeting tool to ease cash flow and not as an avenue to increase their total liabilities. In fact, 72% of Grab consumers agree that having more ways to pay is important to them.
Grab Malaysia’s Head of GrabPay Priyanka Madan
They even roped in more traditional finance players like Maybank with the introduction of the Maybank Grab Mastercard Platinum Credit Card in 2020 to provide Malaysians with even more rewards for their digital-first lifestyle and everyday spending.
With the Maybank Grab Mastercard Platinum Credit Card, cardholders will be able to earn more GrabRewards Points faster and easier, which can be used to redeem any Grab or partner vouchers, offset bills and make payments.Â
The Maybank Grab Mastercard Platinum Credit Card has also been recognised as the Best Credit Card Product by the Asian Banker Awards demonstrating our strategic partnerships to bring superior products and services for consumers. Despite being launched in the midst of the pandemic, the credit card has received positive responses and has managed to garner a strong take-up in Malaysia.
Grab Malaysia’s Head of GrabPay Priyanka Madan
To celebrate their one-year partnership anniversary, they’ve also come up with the Maybank Bonanza Challenge 6.0 from September to October and with rewards for consumers (both new and existing cardmembers) when they spend with their Maybank-Grab-Mastercard Platinum Credit Card.
Here’s how you can join in:
First time Maybank Credit Card holder
- Apply, activate and spend a minimum of RM300 within 45 days with the Maybank-Grab-Mastercard Platinum Credit Card to receive RM100 cashback (applicable for first time approved applicants);
For all new Maybank Grab Mastercard Platinum Credit Card holder (during the campaign period)
- Win 6-months worth of GrabFood (RM6,000 GrabPay credits) or a Nintendo Switch Lite for spending using their Maybank credit cards during the campaign period.
What’s next for Grab
Priyanka said that Grab welcomes opportunities to collaborate and form strategic partnerships with like-minded industry partners and the government to drive the nationwide adoption of digital payments.
She added that they believe that reducing friction in digital payments not only benefits consumers but the platform’s merchant-partners as well.
We launched GrabPay DuitNow QR nationwide, Malaysia’s National QR code that is designed to offer consumers with a safe, easy payment method for in-store purchases, and give merchants access to millions of consumers who have adopted the digital-first lifestyle.
Grab Malaysia’s Head of GrabPay Priyanka Madan
Grab has also helped businesses of all sizes, she said, to digitalise and thrive in the digital economy.
In the past year, we welcomed a wide variety of merchants to the platform, from wet markets and hawkers to grocers and health and beauty merchants nationwide. We have enabled merchants to serve Grab users through our robust payments and rewards ecosystem, while providing convenience to consumers to purchase essential items and be rewarded when using their GrabPay Wallet.
Grab Malaysia’s Head of GrabPay Priyanka Madan
Citing Google’s e-Conomy SEA 2020 report, she said that e-wallets transactions rose to an average of 25% post-Covid-19, which indicates that consumers will continue to use digital payments, given their convenience.
We are humbled by the opportunities and support in our efforts to drive digital payments growth in Malaysia. We will continue innovating on our offerings to better serve the digital and financial needs of our consumers and merchants.
Grab Malaysia’s Head of GrabPay Priyanka Madan
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