Payment giant Mastercard has unveiled “Pay Local,” a new service that allows travelers to use their existing credit or debit cards within popular Asian digital wallets.
Announced ahead of the Singapore Fintech Festival, Pay Local allows consumers to link their Mastercard credit or debit cards to local digital wallets.
This will facilitate easy and seamless payments at over 35 million participating merchants across Asia Pacific.
The Pay Local feature eliminates the need for setting up or topping up prepaid accounts, offering a more convenient payment experience for tourists.
The service will be integrated by prominent digital wallets in the region, including DANA in Indonesia, Touch ‘n Go in Malaysia, Bakong in Cambodia, and LankaPay in Sri Lanka.
Beyond Asia Pacific, Mastercard is eyeing implementation in other regions where digital wallets are widely used, such as Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East and Africa.
The initiative builds on Mastercard’s existing collaborations with Alipay, Weixin Pay, and Octopus, further expanding its global network.
Digital wallets such as GrabPay in Southeast Asia, Maya in the Philippines, ShopBack in Singapore, and TrueMoney in Thailand already support Mastercard cards for funding payments at merchant locations.
Mastercard emphasizes that “Pay Local” benefits not only consumers but also local businesses and wallet providers.
Small businesses gain access to a wider customer base with minimal infrastructure investment, while wallet operators can attract new users who prefer card-based transactions, achieving quicker time to market and providing a smoother consumer experience.
Card issuers also benefit by offering more points of acceptance to their customers.
“With Pay Local, Mastercard is extending its global network to partner wallets and expanding acceptance by making it possible for Asia’s digital wallets to process card-based payments.
This creates a low-cost, simple, stable, and secure connection between over 35 million merchants in Asia Pacific and two billion Mastercard cardholders.”
said Sandeep Malhotra, Executive Vice President, Products & Innovation, Asia Pacific, Mastercard.
“Our collaboration with Mastercard underscores the strength of our open platform strategy, allowing us to extend cashless payment solutions to international travelers visiting Malaysia, contributing to the country’s tourism industry and economy.
We are pleased to offer inbound tourists the convenience of cashless transactions via QR payment at over 2 million merchants, retail outlets, and service providers across Malaysia,”
said Alan Ni, CEO at TNG Digital.
Featured image credit: Edited from Freepik
