Grab driving to break into e-payment sector

The Southeast Asian transport market stands at $25 billion, while the payment market is estimated at $500 billion

Grab co-founder Hooi Ling Tan said that Grab will continue to explore the potential of new services in Vietnam, such as GrabFood and GrabShuttle. Most recently, JustGrab has been launched in Hanoi and Danang city, which combines both GrabTaxi and GrabCar in a single feature to provide faster e-hailing services.

In addition, Grab will expand its range of cashless payment offerings through GrabPay, which is slated to be launched in Vietnam next year. The ride-hailing firm is looking to get licences for GrabPay from the Vietnamese government.

In Southeast Asia, only 1.5 per cent of the local GDP in each country is spent on printing and recirculating cash. It costs money to collect all coins and paper bills to replace them. Also, it costs money for retailers to ensure that there is enough change for daily transactions. All of these problems can be solved by mobile wallet payments, according to Tan.

In fact, Grab has worked in collaboration with several banks in Vietnam, including Shinhan Bank, Techcombank, and Vietcombank. The banks aim to access Grab’s customer database to promote credit card services. However, if Grab’s electronic wallet system is green-lighted in early 2018, it will start aggressively implementing GrabPay in Vietnam.

“GrabPay was launched in Singapore just a few weeks ago. We want Vietnam and Southeast Asia to have similar access to online payment technology, like customers in India and China,” she said, noting that cash is the blood of the economy, so Grab will be careful to roll out this project to ensure healthy cash circulation.

The Vietnamese e-payment market is now home to around 20 companies, including MoMo, ZaloPay, and Samsungpay. GrabPay’s foray into Vietnam is projected to warm up the market that has huge potential but is still essentially untapped.

Grab has recently been under the spotlight for its tax payments in Vietnam. However, Tan stated that Grab has been locally registered and fully compliant with local tax policies since its launch in 2014.

The ride-hailing firm currently operates in five cities, providing four different types of services, including GrabTaxi, GrabCar, GrabBike, and GrabExpress. Grab is the first company to pilot e-hailing services in Vietnam.