Grab, one of Southeast Asia's ride-hailing companies with a strong interest in finance, has introduced its card named GrabPay Card.
- Just like the Apple Card, the physical version of the card does not show information such as the card number, name or expiry date.
- The Mastercard-branded card, which will first be launched in Singapore, will open to the Philippines market at the beginning of 2020.
- With the GrabPay Card, transactions can be made at 53 million merchants in the Mastercard network.
How should we interpret this development?
First of all, Mastercard appears to be one step ahead of Visa when it comes to integration with fintechs or other payment services. The fact that this and similar projects are usually carried out through Mastercard is a sign of this.
In addition, this development indicates that interaction between ecosystems will increase further and that payment systems will become even more embedded in all financial structures.
We will see over time how Visa responds to this move by Mastercard. Visa will either fade away, as the mobile phone brand Nokia did in the past, or become stronger by responding to this move with more innovative steps. We will wait and see.
