Southeast Asia's ride-hailing giant Grab has tied up with MasterCard to issue prepaid cards targeting Southeast Asia's unbanked or under-served population. The tie-up follows similar moves of its peers in other regions.
Grab announced a partnership with MasterCard on Thursday to issue prepaid cards targeting Southeast Asia's 400 million unbanked. «We are the first e-wallet at scale from our region to be accepted worldwide,» said Reuben Lai, senior managing director of Grab Financial in a press statement.
The announced tie-up follows similar moves by ride-hailing giants in other parts of the world. In the U.S., Uber announced its partnership with Visa on its website. In India, Ola partnered ICICI bank for its co-branded credit card, according to a report in «The Economic Times».
Available in 2019
Consumers across the region will be able to apply for the Grab and Master prepaid card directly from the Grab app in the first half of 2019, and receive a virtual card in their e-wallet in the app.
In addition, Grab will also offer physical prepaid cards enabled by both NFC and EMV chip technology. The physical cards are meant to help users make transit payments, such as for metro fares or road tolls.
Tapping on Rising Disposable Income
The new card is a response to some of Southeast Asia’s biggest unmet needs. According to Google and Temasek’s e-Conomy SEA Spotlight report, the region’s growing middle class increasingly spends its disposable income on travel and e-commerce.
«Without changing infrastructure, we can now offer merchants the opportunity to tap into Grab’s user base of emerging middle class consumers, covering 1 in 6 mobile phones in Southeast Asia,» said Rama Sridhar, EVP – Digital & Emerging Partnerships and New Payment Flows.
