SINGAPORE (Aug 31): Ride-hailing firm Grab has signalled its intention to move beyond transportation.

The private hire car service operator on Wednesday launched its peer-to-peer fund transfer feature, allowing users to transfer credits to others via its in-app mobile wallet.

More importantly, the P2P fund transfer technology unlocks the path for Grab to offer e-payments for merchant services.

The move comes amid a push by the Singapore government to encourage more consumers and merchants to switch to cashless payments.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in his National Day Rally earlier this month noted that Singapore has fallen behind in e-payments. “We must simplify and integrate our systems,” Lee says.

By the fourth quarter of this year, Grab aims to roll out the use of its mobile wallet to facilitate payments at more than 1,000 merchants in the F&B, retail, and entertainment industries.

The group says it plans to start the trial of these e-payments in Singapore, and will partner merchants that are currently more heavily dependent on cash payments, such as hawker stalls and small retailers.

“Every day, over 75% of Grab users in Singapore go cashless and use GrabPay to pay for rides. Grab users are familiar with using mobile payments for daily transactions, via the Grab app,” says Jason Thompson, head of GrabPay.

“Fund transfer is the first step to expand the use of GrabPay as a mobile wallet. Today, users can transfer money to one another; in the coming months, they can look forward to use GrabPay to buy food or other goods and services from physical shops,” he adds.

With its app already downloaded on more than 55 million mobile devices across Southeast Asia, Grab figures it has the clout to drive mass adoption of mobile payments in Singapore and the ASEAN region.

On top of benefitting from the increased marketing exposure through the Grab app, participating merchants can also expect to set up the e-payments system easily through the use of a QR code, and enjoy lower costs of cashless adoption without incurring additional fees such as rental of payment terminals.

To make its mobile wallet more secure, Grab this week also introduced a new six-digit GrabPay PIN as a second factor authentication (2FA).

“Cashless payments in Singapore is still quite fragmented,” says Thompson. “We have a stake in educating and bringing local communities into the cashless future, and are open to working with public and private sector organisations to enable this.”

To find out more about e-payments in Singapore, read “As payments council works on national QR code, going cashless still a challenge” in <i>The Edge Singapore</i> (week of Sept 4), available at newsstands now.

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