Singtel Wants to Let You Use Your E-Wallet to Pay Across Asia, Starting with Thailand
by Fintech News Singapore October 3, 2018Singtel Group recently announced the launch VIA, a mobile payments alliance described as an initiative to connect mobile wallets across borders to enable consumers to use their local mobile wallet when travelling.
Concurrent with the launch, they announced their partnership with AIS, a major telco player in Thailand and Kasikornbank one of the largest digital bank in Thailand.
Singtel VIA’s initial alliance with key Thai partners is likely aimed at to capitalising their 1.5 million visitors that travel between Singapore and Thailand.
The Singtel, AIS and Kasikornbank Partnership
Through this partnership Singtel and AIS will now offer QR code-based mobile payments through mobile wallets like Singtel Dash, AIS GLOBAL Pay and Rabbit Line Pay, across both Singapore and Thailand.
These can be used at all merchants displaying the VIA brand and over 1.6 million Kasikornbank merchants displaying the Thai QR code.
The VIA service is accessible to more than 42 million LINE chat users in Thailand. Among them are over 5 million Rabbit LINE Pay users who just need to download AIS GLOBAL Pay to use the e-wallet feature on Rabbit LINE Pay when in Singapore.
The company claims to already have 20,000 merchant acceptance points across Singapore and Thailand.
Unifying Asia’s Fragmented Payments Space
Arthur Lang, Singtel’s CEO said that Singtel VIA is aimed at unifying Asia’s fragmented payments landscape by connecting different mobile wallets across the region.
Following this partnership Singtel is gunning for other regional partners like Airtel in India, Globe in Philippines and Telkomsel in Indonesia and China’s Ping An eWallet.
These partners can then leverage of Singtel Dash’s half a million users and Singtel Group’s combined 700 million users.
Strangely, there were no mention of any partnership with Malaysian digital wallets considering that the Singapore-Malaysia route is the busiest in the world.
Featured Image Credit: Singtel Via
