Apple Pay will boost ‘contactless’ payment but...

Apple Pay is officially launched in UAE and with their substantial consumer base, it will have a positive impact on the overall ‘mobile wallet’ industry.   With a reported $10-billion (by 2018) eCommerce industry in UAE, demand for secure and convenient payment options will continue to increase.  UAE banking sector backed initiative ‘Emirates Digital Wallet’ unveiled their ‘Klip’ app at GITEX with an ambition to make UAE a ‘cashless’ society.  

But the bigger ambition for the founders of Emirates Digital Wallet is to lead the way in ‘financial inclusion’ by making ‘Klip’ available to the unbanked population as well.  A FinTech start-up announced during GITEX that their solution Trriple Mobile Wallet will make mobile payments accessible to ‘everyone’.  They want ‘Trriple’ to benefit the unbanked (mainly labour workforce) and the under-banked Millennials in UAE.   The World Bank reports globally there are 2billion people without access to formal financial services.  Advancement in FinTech can help in reducing this number and one of the notable contributions towards this cause is from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  They have released a free open-source software ‘Mojaloop’ for creating platforms that will help unbanked population access financial services.  

Global media house The Wall Street Journal has an initiative called ‘Financial Inclusion Challenge’ – a competition to showcase solutions that tackle this problem with a focus on Asia-Pacific market.  Blockchain technology can help in developing such solutions, but in the long-term.  FISTM, the largest global provider of FinTech solutions listed 6 key factors to know about ‘financial inclusion’:

1.Regional differences count

2.Unbanked consumers’ attitudes and behaviours should guide the execution strategy

3.Value proposition should be compelling for them to modify their behaviours

4.Social networks are important as motivators

5.Facilitators play a key role in educating the consumers

6.Embedding the right technology can mitigate perceived risks