Contactless Innovations Keep the World Moving Amid COVID-19

on
Date : 29-Apr-2020
Location: Kuala Lumpur

Key Takeaways:
  • With the movement of people temporarily restricted by social distancing measures and Movement Control Order (MCO) in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is in a standstill. Having to work, study and live at home and reduce social interactions, people are turning to technology for help to minimize disruptions in their everyday lives.
  • Contactless payment for one has become an essential part of everyday technology for shopping online, paying bills and ordering food. Furthermore, we are seeing the trend of contactless payment platforms fast evolving to deliver more innovative functionalities, fulfilling consumer needs such as payroll, entertainment, and even donations.
Insights:
  • In Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, local users have even gathered donations through their e-wallets, raising more than US$600,000 (RM2,617,800) in contactless donations. These donations to charitable organizations enable vulnerable groups to immediately access the support they need, including food, masks and other protective equipment.
  • In India and Indonesia, there are nearly 50 million people who are even using e-wallets to access accurate and timely information about the pandemic.

 Case Studies:
  1. Contactless Payment
    • GCash in the Philippines

      Locals turned to online and mobile wallet services for both convenience and safety. GCash, the leading mobile wallet in the Philippines has seen a surge in the number of downloads and ranked the most downloaded free app in the Finance category in Google Play Store.

      Since March, the most used services in GCash wallet include Buy Load and Remittance, of which the total transaction volume has grown by more than 30%.
    • TrueMoney in Thailand

      In order to comply with such measures and reduce the risks of infection, TrueMoney has joined hands with merchants such as 7-Eleven, Makro, CP Freshmart, True Coffee, Chester’s along with street stores and food stall sellers to promote contactless payment and hygiene awareness. TrueMoney’s newly launched in-app feature “Shop Near Me” helps consumers to easily locate nearby stores and place order or request for delivery.

      With the trend to adopt contactless payment during COVID-19, TrueMoney has seen its app download rate climbed by 20% over recent months.


  2. Contactless Rescue

    As the COVID-19 outbreak continues, Bangladesh has tightened its social distancing enforcement and extended the nationwide lockdown. As a result, millions of workers who have been living on daily wages are now left jobless amid one of the worst global crisis.

    Serving around 40 million users in Bangladesh, bKash, the largest mobile financial services provider in the country has been working closely with the government to facilitate the distribution of salary and government incentive to the workers.

    With most of the workers are without bank accounts, bKash as an integrated platform, is helping them to collect salaries through their mobile wallets. After receiving salary, the workers can Cash Out from any of the 230,000 bKash agent-points located across the country, or use cashless services like Send Money, Mobile Recharge, Payments, etc.


  3. Contactless Philanthropy

    Touch ‘n Go eWallet is extending a helping hand to the underprivileged communities by providing a better solution for the rakyat to offer financial relief directly to local non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

    As the nation’s choice for cashless transactions, Touch ‘n Go eWallet wants to highlight the plight and need of those in its network such as Kechara Soup Kitchen, Tzu Chi Buddhist Foundation and Generasi Gemilang. Proceeds are channeled directly to the NGOs in Malaysia enabling to better answer needs of the homeless, vulnerable and low-income families in in a shorter time thereby cutting out lengthy administrative paperwork. To date, Touch ‘n Go eWallet has facilitated donations worth more than RM280,000 to a total of 22 NGOs in Malaysia.
    4. Kechara Soup Kitchen for example, was able to raise enough funds to provide foods and essential items to the poor families who are affected with the pandemic

  4. Contactless Fun

    To help the locals through MCO with a smart, healthy and productive life, Touch ‘n Go eWallet has introduced MCO Buddy, to crowdsource and share bite-sized lifestyle content ranging from cooking recipes, indoor fitness, personal finance to donations to keep people engaged and stay active.
Editor's comments:
  • The COVID-19 which results in a sudden and mass scale social distancing and work-from-home practices globally has definitely helped tech companies to expand use cases and grow users.
  • The cashless society has reached the global arena !!!
  • Startup companies must capitalize on this trend opportunity to find a niche and grab a share in the marketplace. 

Comments

Post a Comment