Razer will go it alone in effort to make Singapore cashless, says CEO

Razer co-founder and CEO Tan Min-Liang / Photo credit: Gene Wang

Remember when Razer CEO Tan Min-Liang tweeted Singapore’s prime minister that he could have a cashless payments system rolled out in the country within 18 months?

That was over 12 months ago. But Tan hasn’t forgotten about the pledge he made.

Tan indicated in a Facebook post today that his Singapore- and US-based gaming company aims to get one million people to use mobile wallets in the city-state by the time the 18-month period ends in April 2019.

However, instead of joining forces with third-party solutions “already gaining traction” to achieve this – like he had proposed back in August 2017 – Tan said Hong Kong-listed Razer would just launch its own solution.

“In respect of Singapore, while we have made strides in moving the country to a cashless economy, for example, SG QR national initiative and PayNow Corporate, we have hardly become a cashless economy,” said Tan, writing on Facebook today.

“Accordingly, as we do not see any third-party consumer e-payment provider that is gaining traction, we plan to launch RazerPay in Singapore by Q1 2019.”

As Tan outlined in his post, a lot has happened at Razer over the past year – particularly on the digital payments front – and he submitted this as evidence of the firm’s readiness to take on the challenge single-handedly.

Razer wholly acquired Malaysia’s MOL Global in April, paying a total of US$100 million for the gaming-focused digital payments platform.

This foreshadowed RazerPay’s Malaysia launch in July – the first market for its digital wallet, which can be used in stores such as 7-Eleven, Starbucks, Wendy’s, and Krispy Kreme, and can be integrated with bank accounts held by cusotmers of seven of the country’s largest banks.

Razer also announced partnerships with Singaporean telco Singtel – aimed at creating what the two companies claim will be “the largest e-payments network in Southeast Asia” – as well as with Singaporean bank UOB.

Tan invited prospective RazerPay users and merchants in Singapore to register their interest.

Not gaining traction

Tan’s claim that no other cashless payments solutions appear to “be gaining traction” in the city-state might not sit well with the likes of Grab and Nets.

The ride-hailing firm has made its GrabPay wallet available across its own platform, as well as in a number of offline merchants – such as hawker stalls, where users can make QR code payments. Grab already has over 5,000 merchants onboarded in Singapore.