Grab’s e-wallet solution GrabPay is the most used e-payment app in the Singapore, according to a study jointly conducted by e-commerce firm iPrice Group and data provider App Annie Intelligence, which analyzes metrics such as Monthly Active Users (MAUs) and total downloads in the past eight quarters.
The study was initiated to track Singapore’s vision to become a cashless society via multiple mobile e-payment applications, a strategy led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
Here are some of the most relevant findings:
Grab leads the local e-payment market and enjoys a large customer base in Southeast Asia
Singapore-headquartered Grab’s e-wallet GrabPay is the most consistently used e-wallet app in the country since the fourth quarter of 2017.
App Annie’s data reveals that Grab consistently obtained the highest monthly active users in the past two years. According to Grab, 77% of all transactions on its platform were conducted via GrabPay. It also claims that cashless usage on its app is 1.3 times higher than overall cashless usage in the city-state.
“To date, about three-quarters of Grab users in Singapore use GrabPay for various services, including making payments at over 10,000 merchants in stores and online”, head of GrabPay Singapore Gary Won said to the media.
Besides Singapore, Grab is also performing well in neighboring countries. It is ranked first in Malaysia and second in Indonesia (after OVO) in similar studies conducted in these two countries.
Bank-based e-wallet DBS PayLah! ranks second
The next most popular e-wallet app after Grab is DBS PayLah!, a bank-based mobile wallet app owned by Singapore-based multinational bank DBS.
According to the report, the high number of active users is primarily driven by DBS’s popularity and credibility in Singapore, since the bank was established by the government of Singapore in 1968. It was also ranked as the safest bank in Asia by New York-based trade publication Global Finance in 2016.
The report clarifies that DBS PayLah! is the only bank-based application studied, as it is the only semi-closed e-wallet application provided by a bank. Other bank-based applications were not taken into consideration because they only allow registered bank account users to use such payment services.
The company says to have 3 million users with full access to its digital financial services, and plans to reach 3.5 million by 2023, according to a press statement.
Digital payment app Fave is still an important player
Fave, a pure-play digital payment app, continues to remain relevant. It is the third most used and fourth most downloaded mobile wallet in Singapore as of the third quarter of 2019.
The payment aggregator platform allows users to link their credit, debit cards, or e-wallet on FavePay. In 2019, the app has been downloaded over 4 million times, with monthly active users that have been growing over three times in past years, according to Fave.
Singapore’s first contactless payment system EZ-Link among fastest-growing platforms
Introduced in 2002, EZ-Link is the country’s first contactless stored value card meant for public transit use. Today it is among the fastest-growing mobile payment platforms in the country, says the report.
The platform ranked third in terms of total downloads and forth as the most used e-wallet app in Singapore.
“The company is making a concerted effort to contribute to Singapore’s goals to promote e-payment adoption and reduce cash handling”, EZ-Link CEO Nicholas Lee stated.
Alipay and Singtel Dash fight to be among the top five
Alipay, the mobile payment platform operated by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s affiliate Ant Financial, ranked fifth in the list of e-wallets apps by number of MAUs during the last six quarters, while Singapore-based payments solution platform Singtel Dash ranked fifth as the most downloaded app in the last three terms.
The Chinese payment platform is working to provide cashless services to local and to Chinese travelers overseas. According to a Nielsen report, 65% of Chinese tourists utilized mobile payment platforms when traveling overseas, more than six times in comparison to non-Chinese tourists (11%). The same reports indicate that over 90% of Chinese travelers would like to use mobile payments when traveling overseas.
E-wallet platforms have great growth potential in the next two years
Citing a report by JP Morgan which identifies digital wallets as the second-most popular payment method in Singapore with about 14% of all e-commerce transactions, totaling USD 680 million of sales, iPrice and App Annie jointly concluded that there is vast untapped potential for e-wallets in Singapore in the next two years.
The same study indicates that the usage of digital wallets is expected to rise exponentially, making up 22.5% of all e-commerce sales by 2021 in Singapore.