“Local monk, foreign abbot” Who is better?
This article is from WeChat public account “ePanda to the Middle East (ID: ePandaMENA)” , The author is calm.
When it comes to mobile payment, the Chinese will immediately think of Alipay and WeChat payment, but when it comes to the UAE, it may be very confused. Let’s talk about the local mobile payment situation today.
If Beam was born in 2012 as the first year of mobile payment in the UAE, then 2017 will be the year of mobile payment outbreak. Samsung launched Samsung Pay in the first half of 2017. Apple followed closely with Apple Pay in October. After various subsidy rebate activities, a large number of users were harvested.
Speaking of mobile payment, the Chinese will immediately think of Alipay and WeChat payment, but when it comes to the UAE, it may be very confused. Let’s talk about the local mobile payment situation today.
If Beam was born in 2012 as the first year of mobile payment in the UAE, then 2017 will be the year of mobile payment outbreak. Samsung launched Samsung Pay in the first half of 2017. Apple followed closely with Apple Pay in October. After various subsidy rebate activities, a large number of users were harvested.
After that, more local players will join the arena. For banks, you can see Eminrates NBD Pay, Mashreq Pay and FAB Payit; for non-bank institutions, there are Ewallet of Etisalat, Enocpay of ENOC, Share Wallet of MAF, Trriple Wallet, Foloosi and so on.
The “foreign monks” who first chanted the scriptures
Samsung Pay, the earliest to launch, claims to have nearly 3 million active users and has achieved comprehensive acceptance coverage through cooperation with a number of local banks. As a weathervane in the mobile phone field, Apple’s NFC payment ApplePay not only performs well offline, but also achieves excellent online results. Currently, RTA, Zomato and ENOC gas stations have been accepted for these key use scenarios.
In addition, Applepay users are highly sticky and use it much more frequently than Samsung Pay. Many users who have opened Samsung Pay said in the pastIt has not been used within one year, which may be related to brand tone and users (both parties have invested in user subsidies in the previous period).
Also, since Alipay launched in the UAE in early 2018, through cooperation with major acquirers, it has opened up most commercial areas and Chinese community use scenarios, and has been used by many local merchants and customers for its annual and vigorous marketing activities As we know, Alipay has also become a beautiful scenic line in Dubai city.
But no matter it is Samsung Pay, Apple Pay or Alipay, the presence is full of “foreign monks”, so how does the “local abbot” perform?
Efforts of local banks
As mentioned earlier, local banks have actually launched their own Pay, such as Emirates NBD Pay and Mashreq Pay.
These pays do not need to be downloaded separately. The registered bank APP can be used with the bank’s debit or credit card. The main reason why they have no sense of existence is that the banks do not pay special attention, but only as an attempt to actively innovate.
The focus of the two banks is still on the KPIs of the two card organizations, Visa and Mastercard: Promote contactless (contactless cards, complete payment with a single touch). This is from the fact that 75% of the POS machines in the market have NFC function, and so the cashier’s education on contactless payment can fully feel the efforts of local acquirers.
Other wallets working quietly
According to the type of persistent wallet and penetrating wallet, local mobile wallets are mainly divided into persistent wallets represented by PayB of FAB, Ewallet of Etisalat, ENOCPAY of ENOC and Careem Pay of Careem. They can be tied together. Recharge the card and deposit funds in the balance account.
MAF’s Share Wallet and Foloosi are penetrating wallets, just like Apple Pay, they only serve as interactive tools. They can be tied to the card but cannot be recharged, and there is no balance account to deposit funds. Today I mainly talk about stranded wallets.
Payit was released in March 2018 and is the first QR code wallet in the UAE. E-wallet was released in June 2019. The two main methods of receiving and paying are to scan QR codes, but Payit later added Paying for voice recognition feels more of a promotional material.
In terms of functions, both wallets include the three core functions of receiving and paying, enjoying benefits, and account management. Payit has more subdivisions in terms of receipt and payment, similar to WeChat payment “group receipt”The function is like receiving money from a friend. For a friend who has not yet opened Payit, he can send him an SMS with a payment link.
But because Ewallet needs to complete face-to-face KYC before it is opened, you can find the option “cash out” in the wallet. If Payit does not perform face-to-face KYC, the funds charged into the wallet will continue to deposit in the wallet.
Later: ENOC Pay and Careem Pay
The more interesting ones are ENOC Pay and Careem Pay. The aforementioned Payit and Ewallet both have wallet licenses issued by the UAE central bank, but these two are not on the list of central banks. These two pay were released in the first and second half of 2019, respectively.
Careem Pay is currently only used for its online fare payment, but as Careem began to deploy Careem bicycles in various areas of Dubai to improve its “last mile” passenger carrying solution, it may only be time for Careem Pay to go offline The problem is that the interaction method should be a “scan” scan code payment. Digression, I heard recently that Careem has tendered to various card organizations to prepare to issue its own prepaid cards, and the pace of entering the financial field is also accelerating.
Open ENOC PAY, and you can find the scan code, ViP (vehicle identification pass) payment and Apple payment, etc. The usage scenarios are gas charging and convenience stores in gas stations, which greatly improves the convenience of gas. . Therefore, CareemPay and ENOCPay currently provide more payment methods in their ecological closed loop, and their future ambitions are unknown.