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Hello readers,
The Lunar New Year is fast approaching, and I, like many of my peers here in Singapore, am trying desperately to collect all the characters of Huat Pals on Google Pay in a bid to reap cash rewards at the end of February. The social game, where you can acquire the different “pals” through actions such as making payments or referring friends to the platform, is just one of the many tactics that Google is employing in order to get people on board and actively use Google Pay.
The tech giant has some advantages that make it a worthy contender in Singapore’s digital payments space, but it’s also going up against the likes of Grab and Fave, whose e-wallets have become a pretty big part of the city-state’s payments ecosystem.
Today we look at,
- The rise of Google Pay in Singapore
- This Bangladeshi telehealth startup focusing on the women who need it most
- Other newsy highlights such as Gojek and Tokopedia finalizing the terms of their merger and fresh funding for ex-Lazada CEO Pierre Poignant’s new venture
PREMIUM SUMMARY
Google Pay on the rise
In September 2020, Google Pay launched its refreshed app in Singapore, using attractive sign-up and referral bonuses, as well as cashbacks on peer-to-peer fund transfers, to win over customers. The tech giant’s ubiquity – along with other factors – means that it could be a pretty strong contender in the city-state’s digital payments space.
- Howdy, partners: Google Pay has partnerships with DBS’ e-wallet DBS PayLah, OCBC Bank, and Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore, along with a tie-up with the national peer-to-peer funds transfer service PayNow, which allows users to directly draw funds from their existing bank accounts.
- The power of PayNow: Users and merchants who are already familiar with transacting on PayNow will find that using Google Pay is much the same experience. Plus, it would benefit Google to ride on PayNow from both a cost and acquisition perspective: Since Google Pay works wherever PayNow works, there’s no need for Google to invest in any additional infrastructure or educate merchants and customers about how it works.
- What lies ahead: Google Pay’s success in India could be an indicator of how its journey in Singapore could play out, given the similarities between PayNow and India’s unified payments interface. However, it won’t be an easy journey, given that local e-wallets such as GrabPay and FavePay have had a head start and possess strong ecosystems within their apps.
Read more: Should Singapore’s e-wallets be threatened by Google Pay?
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