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Moving on from e-wallets, GoTo, Grab look to digital banking
A new scheme to allow direct links between digital banks and apps could provide the former with much-needed access to capital and lower their overall cost of funds.
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Superbank president director Tigor Siahaan poses in an undated picture with the Superbank logo. (Superbank/-)
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ech giants including Gojek, Grab and Shopee have been establishing direct links between their apps and the digital banks they own to provide more seamless payment options for users.
The new method bypasses e-wallets, which have been the preferred payment method on those apps for the past decade, and offers additional benefits, such as monthly interest.
Analysts say this could provide digital banks with much-needed access to capital and lower their overall cost of funds. It would also aid the tech giants’ quest for profitability in the current high-interest rate environment.
However, the shift away from the well-established e-wallets is expected to be a gradual process, unless the tech firms offer appealing incentives to users.
In April, Grab became the latest major digital platform to ease payments by allowing its users to connect the app with accounts in Superbank, a digital bank in which the Singapore-based firm is a shareholder.
The company also allows users to create a Superbank account through the Grab app in what is known as a banking as a service (BaaS) offer.
“The feature provides a new way to access banking services and ease transactions in the Grab app, as well as offer an opportunity to have a savings account with a [relatively high] 6 percent annual interest rate,” Tigor Siahaan, president director of Superbank, told The Jakarta Post on Friday.
