Ride-sharing transportation plays an important role in modern society in Southeast Asia. Grab and Go-Jek, the SEA ride-sharing duo, started off in this area, and evolved beyond to constantly introduce new and innovative service offerings to their platforms, as both companies now locked horns in a race to become the region’s super app.
Their latest venture is to bring mobile-based financial service to customers through collaboration with banks.
Go-Jek announced today a strategic partnership with Singapore’s DBS Bank on payment services, weeks ahead of the widely-reported launch of the Indonesian unicorn’s ride-hailing service in Singapore, the home market of its archrival Grab.
DBS claims in a release that its DBS PayLah! is the country’s most popular mobile wallet.
The saying of great minds think alike apparently applies to the SEA ride-hailing duo.
Go-Jek is not the only one that’s teaming up with a bank to offer mobile financial services. Grab, in two separated cases, formed alliances with Singapore’s UOB and Thailand’s KBank to deliver financial services for Grab users in Southeast Asia and provide the Thais with mobile payment convenience.
Under the partnership with UOB, Grab will choose the former as its preferred banking partner in Singapore, and a strategic credit card partner in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
UOB will also build some features of its digital bank into Grab’s mobile app, giving Grab users easier and quicker access to UOB’s mobile banking services.
Editor: Ben Jiang
