Grab, one of Southeast Asia’s leading super apps, announced the launch of GrabPay Card today to further push its financial services. The card is considered Asia’s first numberless card, available in Singapore starting today.
According to the company’s statement, users can apply for the physical numberless card after receiving their digital card. The physical card will be rolled out in batches. The digital GrabPay Card will be launched in the Philippines in the first quarter of 2020, with other Southeast Asian countries to follow in the first half of next year.
The GrabPay Card is in partnership with Mastercard, with the aim of expanding Grab’s offline and online merchant ecosystem. It allows users, regardless of whether they have a bank account, to transact online or offline, at nearly 53 million merchants worldwide that accept Mastercard cards.
Huey Tyng Ooi, managing director of GrabPay, said in a statement that the this is a continued “evolution” of GrabPay and that more features will be added to make GrabPay become a “truly ASEAN wallet.”
In Singapore, GrabPay is the most used e-payment app in Singapore, according to a study jointly conducted by e-commerce firm iPrice Group and data provider App Annie Intelligence last month. The study analyzed metrics such as Monthly Active Users (MAUs) and total downloads in the past eight quarters.
Grab is also among the three dozen companies in the race for Singapore’s digital banking license, according to Reuters.