Ride hailing company Grab has reportedly has announced its plans to introduce virtual pre-paid debit in collaboration with Mastercard. This move is the biggest digital payment push in Southeast Asia to date.
The particular deal will witness its Grab Pay business offer Grab’s 110 million registered users the option to use a virtual Mastercard to make payments both online and in-person.
With this partnership, the users will be able to use physical Grab Pay cards or virtual ones, the latter being a card number, expiry date, and other details that are held within the Grab app.
“We see Grab Pay as a glue that goes across all the products we offer, and rewards our users for using them,” Reuben Lai, senior managing director at Grab Financial said. “Grab Pay users spend two times more than regular users and they stay twice longer on our platform.”
Grab Pay can now exist as a standalone service but the only question is if the company can market the virtual card service effectively and tap the undoubted potential that it has for its business and consumers in Southeast Asia.