Singapore-based mobility platform Grab announced today a partnership with Filipino conglomerate SM Investments Corporation (SM), the latest move in its push into Southeast Asia’s mobile payment market through such tie-ups.
Grab just signed a similar deal with Thailand’s KBank to bring its mobile wallet GrabPay to the local market.
Through the partnership, SM’s portfolio of shopping malls, banks, and merchant-partners across the Philipines will serve as the main routes for Grab to extend its footprints among Filipinos from next year on. Grab, on the other hand, provides the essential user base and tech platform to digitize SM’s existing services.
Additionally, the Philippines’ largest bank BDO will allow Grab’s consumers to load their mobile wallet with BDO bank accounts, ATMs, etc.
“We are mindful of the evolving online-to-offline landscape especially in retail and continue to branch into new solutions that will unlock more benefits to our consumers,” says Frederic C. DyBuncio, SMIC CEO, while Ooi Huey Tyng, Managing Director of GrabPay Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines talked about the value Grab brings to conglomerates and financial institutions alike.
Other collaborations include wider use of the Grab mobile wallet. More than just transportation and delivery services, Grab users will be able to make purchases for groceries, movie tickets and other types of goods and services. Express checkout counters are also made available to make offline shopping more convenient at SM-operated retail stores.
This deal makes Grab the first player who offers mobile payment services across Southeast Asia’s (SEA) six core markets – Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, and Thailand. It also claims to be the leading mobile payment operator in SEA in terms of having the largest number of Monthly Active Users (MAU) and Total Payments Volume (TPV).
Perhaps the rapid expansion push across the region could be, in part, spurred by archrival Go-Jek. There is a real need to have a first-mover advantage in the mobile space in SEA.
Editor: Ben Jiang