Square Edges into Banking Business; Grab Partners with MayBank: News Roundup

Square’s Cash app is edging them into the banking business while Grab partners with Malaysia’s MayBank to launch its mobile wallet. And in other news, payment facilitator PayMate acquires Z2P Technologies and Vietnam strives for peak growth potential in its move towards a cashless society.

Here’s your weekly news roundup!

Square’s Cash app edges them into the banking business. According to CNBC, the latest innovation from Square is being used by many consumers as more of a bank account than the company actually intended.

“People are using this as their primary banking account, and in some case it’s their only bank account,” said Square CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey on stage at the Consensus blockchain conference in New York this week, according to the same article. “We are reaching an audience that is under-served and even to the point of unbanked, which wasn’t a stated goal but it’s something we love and want to lean into more.”

Square’s Cash app is currently growing faster than PayPal’s Venmo and the company has no plans to slow down the momentum, according to the same article.

Vietnam strives for peak growth potential in move towards a cashless society. As reported in a whitepaper authored by Solidiance, Unlocking Vietnam’s Fintech Growth Potential, the country’s fintech market saw a spike in transaction value to 4.4 billion in 2017 and is expected to grow to 7.8 billion by 2020.

According to the paper, rising bank penetration seems to be a huge driver for the numbers as the country moves towards a cashless society. Among other contributing factors cited in the white paper is the government’s ambitious plan to reduce cash transactions to 10% of all payments by 2020.

Grab partners with MayBank to drive usage and adoption of GrabPay mobile wallet. The ride-hailing firm turned payments company received its e-money license from Bank Negara Malaysia in 2017. Now it has partnered with MayBank – the biggest bank in Malaysia – to launch GrabPay mobile wallet, according to Reuters.

The beta is set for launch in the coming weeks. Malaysia is slated to become the second market where the wallet can be used for purchases in restaurants and shops, according to the same article.

Mumbai-based PayMate acquires Z2P Technologies. Z2P Technologies is a peer-to-peer lending platform and the acquisition marks Paymate’s official entrance into the digital lending space.

PayMate’s goal is to better service small and medium sized enterprises currently using their solutions by offering loans for more than 20,000 of these target customers, according to The Economic Times.

Worldpay snags top US merchant acquirer spot in The Strawhecker Group’s annual directory of US merchant acquirers. In light of the recent merger between Vantiv (previously ranked number 4) and Worldpay (previously number 11), the combined companies, now processing under the Worldpay brand, currently hold the top spot in processing volume for 2017.

According to Digital Transactions, the new Worldpay serves an estimated 1.2 million merchants across the globe, with an estimated $1.12 trillion in U.S. processing volume.