Touchless payment war heating up in Singapore

2 years ago I wrote about paying with online tools in a brick-&-mortar store and it felt new and refreshing. In the last few months all the online giants have decided to expand their touch-less payment solutions internationally, venturing outside of their home turf for the first time.
We have Apple Pay and Android Pay leaving the US shores and a few other test countries, and Samsung Pay doing the same starting from South Korea.
It may sound like another online fad but this time (okay you may have heard this before) it is quite more serious: traditional banks are in and promoting the respective services aggressively. What has changed in the last two years?
The ubiquity of smartphones and the realization that once a service reaches critical mass, users tend to stick with it. And this has nothing to do with the quality of the service, or its UX, it is really the number of users and the related network effect that makes difference. And once someone is used to paying with a service, and providing a wealth of information about its habits, this is gold for any provider.
Hence the payment war that was brewing for so long now playing in the open.

Singapore with its small highly connected and wealthy population, and top notch digital infrastructure is the perfect testing ground. Samsung Pay became available on June 16th, Apple Pay started few weeks earlier on May 25th, and finally Android Pay arrived on June 28th. And all the banks are proposing cash back schemes, food store chains are proposing discounts, and every possible media is reporting on it. And of course advertising platforms are loving it with the gigantic budgets being poured into the various launches.
This would not be complete without mentioning Alipay, from the Chinese juggernaut Alibaba, that is now available almost everywhere after the purchase of regional online e-commerce giant lazada. Although Alipay is still firmly online based, this will change quickly.
I have not done a thorough test of all services, using exclusively Android Pay, which works also very well on all terminals labelled "Samsung Pay" (to the confusion of store clerks)*. Using those services is akin to swiping your credit card in front of the terminal and putting it back in your wallet. Quick and easy, with the difference of doing with your phone. And it is always closer to your hand than your credit card, right?

A quick demonstration here

The four actors are using Singapore to learn about consumers' reaction, hone their marketing tactics and expand quickly. It will make for an interesting battle but also for more innovation for us, consumers. And that, cannot be bad.

*I must mention again that I am a Google employee so I have had immediate access to the service and can be biased. And also that the opinion expressed here is mine only and not that of my employer.

Grabbing more or the future evolution of ride sharing services

Coming back to this page after a long absence mainly due to other priorities and procrastination, to be honest.

I am jumping right into it by following up on my last post about GrabTaxi. As of a few weeks ago it is now Grab. This comes with a new graphic identity, a new logo, a new transit campaign, international agreements and many new services.

Based on the picture you can see they went big and were (and still are) all over the place in Singapore. 

New services (GrabCar - in 4 flavours -, GrabHitch, Limo Taxi) on top the legacy taxis and certainly more to come outside of the world of transportation. Why? The change in name calls for the ability to call on the service to literally "grab" anything one would want: food, general order delivery, and why not payment like successful Chinese social services? Future will tell but I am not the only thinking about it.

China & the rest of the world are actually very much top of mind following the announcement of a cross partnership with Lyft (itself $500M richer following investment by GM), Didi Kuaidi of China and Ola from India. Using one's favorite app is really a good thing for users as they don't need to learn a new UX or language. But looking at the backers of these companies, there may be more at work: Softbank backs all of them, even Lyft via its investment in Alibaba. The cut throat competition will call for consolidation amongst all the players and money will be made in the backend as well as with additional services. Otherwise there is going to be blood, like in the US this past January.

This will be a short post and before my last comment I want to point to a link towards a re/code decode podcast featuring the president of Lyft, John Zimmer, who talks about the company, the recent investment from GM and the future. One interesting thought was about the real turning point for ride sharing apps: a 3-minute ETA anywhere in a market would make them a good alternative to other modes of transportation. How would that change our habits? Would that still provide ride sharing app drivers with living wage? Those are questions up for debate but very real.

And I will leave with a geeky picture of my early morning ride to the airport this week when, to my surprise, a Tesla S picked me up. What a great car, and that screen!

The Uber-killer from Asia you never heard of

Since moving to Singapore 8 months ago, I have started taking more taxis for work meetings or simply make up for late starts. Given the size of the city, taxis are everywhere but horribly difficult to get during peak hours. Traditional booking services provided by taxi companies are unreliable at best. So there was a spot to take to make up for the abysmal service consumers where getting. Comes in GrabTaxi, the Malaysia-born booking app. They started by solving the same issue in Kuala Lumpur and naturally made their way to Singapore and the rest of the region. You can find details of their start with this article from Tech In Asia.

What made think that they have an edge versus Uber, Hailo and others is the way they are running their business. First, they are positioning themselves as a support for taxi drivers because they have understood that they are the best salespeople they can dream of. Driver have an obvious interest in the app being successful and won't go up in arms against it, the way they went against Uber which tried to bypass them. It is a really smart approach, though obvious in hindsight. Also, by doing that, they are taking a page from Charles Branson's Virgin philosophy (I am paraphrasing): treating your employee well motivates them and in return they are providing great products and services to your customers, making the company successful. If taxi drivers can get additional business (more rides), they will make sure the app is successful by providing great service to passengers. So GrabTaxi is treating taxi drivers really well, listening to them, helping them getting smartphones, welfare, keeping them updated on what comes next. They even regularly gather them for drinks to hear firsthand what they think and how they should improve the service. At the same time they will cut off bad drivers (ie rated poorly repeatedly) without a second thought. I heard this first hand from several taxi drivers themselves who are rooting for the service and making their outmost to be nice and asking for ratings. They got what was there for them and are making sure to get the best out of it. 

Sure, all taxi drivers are not perfect but by boosting the best, they are progressively changing the landscape and making trips much more enjoyable for riders.

As a user, I am impressed by the always evolving app, the precisions of it (compared to Uber) and the service I am receiving. In Thailand it has proven really useful to grab the taxi I needed without speaking any Thai. And the latest addition, Grabpay (basically paying by pre-registered credit card a-la-Uber) is very useful and appreciated by drivers, as they don't pay any commission like other booking services 

Finally, GrabTaxi is low key, humble, developing quickly without pushing too hard, the anti-thesis to Uber. And it is working perfectly well in South East Asia, having been born here and understanding the various traditions and business manners.

All of this, the focus on drivers, the humble approach, the level of service and constant innovation make me think they have a shot at overshadowing the competition in this part of the world. What do you think?

Online payment coming to brick and mortar

Paying online is becoming easier by the day with so many options to chose from. I reckon I can use credit cards (directly inputting data in fields), PayPal, prepaid cards, my Apple ID, Google Wallet, Bitcoins and the likes, and even air miles. 
On the other end of the spectrum, brick and mortar stores seem to have been stuck in the 1990s. Cash, cheques, credit cards (not always with microchips and PIN codes) and that is about it. Rechargeable NFC cards (stand alone or embedded in mobile phones) have appeared in the last few years but they are limited by competing standards and acceptance. Even ever-modern Japan, where I am based, is plagued my these limitations and there is no dominant new form of payment ("saifu keitai" or "mobile wallet" has not succeeded the transition from feature phone to smartphone)

Recently the competition has heated up for both payment and loyalty cards with the Apple Passbook/ iBeacon combination, Google Wallet (NFC) and of course Square. The most advanced so far seem to be the latter, with its international footprint, cash register options and charismatic leader. It even started making strides in traditionally conservative Japanese mom & pop shops, as their latest online campaign suggests. Paypal has decided to try its luck as well and announced several moves starting almost a year ago with the most interesting announcement last September. I was delighted to learn they were testing that precise technology at my neighborhood electronic store and went to try it out. I was accompanied by my fellow geek and colleague Joe Fry. As images are better than words, Joe shot and edited this video of our test

Despite the gentlemen manning the booth who was initially really surprised to see two foreigners coming just to try out his ware, it was a seamless experience. It "just" replaces the credit card swapping and signing/ entering a PIN number, but it makes a difference. Nowadays many people have smartphones in their pockets and launching an application is trivial and simple. I would say it felt almost natural to pay this way, without having to look for my wallet and not giving away my credit card information to yet another store. I am pretty sure I would not be the only one feeling that way. Additionally, Paypal is a trusted name and I can see how using it around town would be reassuring. And it handles many currencies so using it for international travel would be a possibility. 
I do not know how it translates in terms of fees and money availability for businesses, but it would certainly simplify the process of accepting non-cash payment compared to getting a merchant account and renting a credit card terminal.

As a marketer I can see the potential for finally calculating and analyzing the effectiveness of a campaign from the marketing message (online or offline) down to the actual purchase at the point of sale. As a skeptic, I see traditional businesses (distributors, store chains, credit card companies, cash register and card terminal manufacturers) putting up a fight to avoid change and technological companies continue creating great incompatible systems based on closed standards. 

But as a geek and a consumer, I am very positive with this new development and excited to see new modes of payments more in sync with our modern habits, challenging the status quo. And with the announced arrival of wearable computing, it will make even more sense to ditch cash for an all-digital transaction. There, I bet you my kid may never actually understand why we were making such a fuss about it!

No, I don't need to own a car

As mentioned in my previous post, my home is in Tokyo where the cost of living is quite high (see the worldwide ranking for expats here, though I have been here long enough to qualify as a local).
Buying domestic car does not cost much but as you may know, it is only a fraction of the cost of ownership. What hurts particularly is that there is very little parking space and, if you are renting, you have to pay an ungodly amount of money to park you car. Given the fact that I drive only for getaways, to irregular shopping spree or family-related medical appointments, and mass transportation runs on time here, I don't really need a car.
Don't get me wrong, I love driving and powerful, beautiful cars. And don't get me started on automatic gearboxes! It just does not make any economic sense.

Car sharing
Talking with a colleague who is a frequent user, I decided to try out car sharing. Basically it is like renting a car, except that you pay a monthly fee and get to chose what to drive for an all-inclusive price. And as your information is already in the system, it is pretty convenient.
Many services are available in Tokyo and after a bit of research I chose "Times Plus" (details on the car sharing market in this recent article of the Japan Times). They have several stations around where I live and a good choice of cars.
The monthly fee is cheap (1,000 yen/ a bit less than US$10 that are given as a discount on your usage during the month) and there are packages and pays-as-you-go options. Registering took a few minutes online and all I needed is a scan of my driver's license and a credit card. Few days later I got my member's card and I was ready to go.

To select a car I just access the website (or use an app) from whatever machine I use and I can see which cars (small, vans, sports, hybrid, etc) are available where during the time I am interested and book them. What is really fun for a techie is how you get in the car. Your member's card has an embedded RFID chip that opens the car when you swipe it on the windshield!

and the car are easy to find in the parking lot thanks to those plastic banners in front of them

Experience
Then the actual car keys are in the glove box. So easy. Did I mention I could set up the GPS at the time of the booking so that the car is all ready for me when I get in? And the same GPS knows when the car is back at its spot, their big computer knows when the keys are back in the glove box and my card swiped to lock everything. And then I receive an email to confirm I gave the car back.
And the actual cost you may ask? For example a 30km round trip for running some errands taking 3 and half hours, costs a bit less than $30. Not bad, knowing we were 3 in the car.
And by the way, if you take some of your time to fill the tank (more than 20 liters) or get the car washed at one of their partner gas stations (using the loyalty cards available in the car) you receive discounts. How do they know that? Well sensors in the tank and the use of the loyalty card linked to their database. Spooky may be but the incentive is good (15-minute discount for each) and it makes sense for the company as users are helping doing the basic maintenance, lowering the overall cost of the service.

So...
I am really enjoying the service. The cars are new and well taken care of, the customer service responsive and the whole experience is smooth.
On one hand, where I went, from where, for how long, the type of cars I use is logged in their database. By cross referencing with my credit card company or my online social activities they would be able to have pretty good image of my habits. This could be a problem if it got stalked by someone who was after me and able to get to the data. It could always happen but the probability is pretty small (except if I become a very well known and important person but that's another story!).
On the other hand, all these technologies coupled together are offering me a good experience, a useful service at a reasonable price solving a logistical and economical problem I am facing as an urban dweller. And imagine the type of personalized offers they could provide me with if they were smart...

All in all, these new technologies used in a smart way are a boon for us, offering more convenience and lowering costs. Of course we are handing over some information, voluntarily, but the pay off is obvious. As I was mentioning in the previous post, we should remain vigilant of the laws of the land and the T&Cs of the companies to make sure we remain protected and our privacy respected to continue enjoying the benefits of technology. Which brings me to the "Reform Government Initiative" by some tech giants to get governments (especially the US one) to be more transparent, and that is great.
Let's continue enjoy technology but be informed and active citizens!

Big data making life easier for a city dweller

Living in big cities, wherever you are in the world, comes at a cost: more expensive groceries, smaller living spaces, exorbitant parking space, traffic, noise and pollution, to name a few. Being in Tokyo myself, I experience all of that and some more. So I decided to take full advantage of new technologies to make things a bit easier and share my experience and thoughts with you.

Everyday convenience
We have gone fully online for everything that is bulky, repetitive and does not need to be selected every time (ie like fresh produces), and choose Amazon (Prime and Amazon family members - called "Amazon Mom" in the US).
Besides the obvious price advantage (no retail space to pay, passing down savings to consumers), convenience is great. The shipping notice comes by email, of course, but being displayed in Google Now in great details changes everything.

Amazon has a great agreement with delivery services (here Yamato Transport) thanks to which there is a deep link in the notice email to their parcel tracking service (in blue at the bottom of the image above). Without any login, I can check hour-by-hour the status, on any Google connected device, and know more or less when the delivery will arrive.

And it was accurate at +/- 30 minutes. Speak of convenience! I can mind my own business outside home or get into a meeting without the risk of being interrupted or missing the delivery. I am sold on it!

Technologies
What made this possible is the convergence of 3 technologies: databases, real time positioning (GPS) and unified online ID.

• Amazon and Yamato (the transporter) have linked their databases to permit a rapid exchange of information, to make it as relevant as possible for consumers (see a brief description of what happens on Amazon Japan English page). They have done it in an open way so that a third party (like Google) can actually use this information to provide added value to users. As consumers, we have to authorize and accept that our information is analyzed, crossed between many databases/tables and profiles, shared between companies and accessible for our own convenience. Databases are nothing new of course, it is how the underlying technologies and the protocols to exchange information between them that makes a difference.
• Real-time positioning (based on GPS), allows us (sellers and transporter of goods as well) to know exactly where a parcel is and estimate its delivery time, based on past experiences stored and analyzed in databases. Each parcel gets scanned (with a bar code or a QR code, or RFID tag, ) every time it changes hands or reach a distribution point and the information goes up in the database and back to us via our devices. It is the same technology that helps us find our way or receive timely and geo-targeted offers.
• Unique Online ID is our online unique face that permits companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon or others to recognize us wherever we are and propose us customized service and information. Think how you can connect to so many services by just using your Facebook login or Google login, that is it.

The benefit I get from the use of these technology makes my life easier, and yours certainly too. At the same time we hear from many sources about "big data", our private information being mined and combined here and there, and users being "the product". And in a way it can be said to be true. But I believe it is an alarmist and headline grabbing and unbalance way of depicting the whole picture.


Quick conclusion
If we look at my own example and the benefit I received from it, it overweights the possible downsides. Of course we need to be vigilant about how our data is being used, kept, managed and destroyed by keeping up to date on T&Cs and not letting companies & governments off the hook. That said, I believe that stating a simple "not for me" is going against the march of progress and denying ourselves a lot of convenience.
Next time, I will be looking at how I have decided not to have a car full time and conclude on some broader questions. Until then, do not hesitate to let me know what you think.

Subway tokens and leaping forward

I travel a lot for work, mainly in South East Asia. Although I usually take taxis if I am traveling with colleagues, I prefer mass transportation when on my own.

Recently I used the subway in Taipei and Bangkok and could not be more positively impressed. They are clean, runs on time, people are caring for others (elderly, kids, pregnant women) and ads are not too much in your face. And of course, very good 3G and LTE connections, even underground.

What impressed me though is the ticketing system. Both subways are relatively new (2004 for Bangkok and 1996 in Taipei) and have leaped forward technology-wise when compared with older systems. Platforms are all equipped with security doors preventing passengers from falling on the tracks (voluntarily or not), air conditioned, and did not bother with subway tickets. Yes, no tickets. At least not in the shape Europeans and Americans are used to. All tickets are either multi-entry IC cards or tokens, like this one:

Beside the obvious geek factor of playing around with a RFID piece of plastic, it shows a couple of forward looking thinking: future compatibility with additional lines or between subway and other older train systems once they get upgraded, the possibility of embedding the ticket technology into smartphones and other form factors and finally cleanliness (no paper tickets = no littering, durability, more limited long term environmental impact). It is all boils down to more convenience for users in the long term. And gets us close to the internet of things.
Even if you do not speak the language, the token system is instinctive enough to let you find your way around. This simple video shows the efforts that went into making the system easy for foreigners (likewise for Taipei):

When traffic can be bad and moving around in taxis more onerous, this is a good way to help tourists discover the city (spending more money eating and shopping) as well as supporting local workers who can move around more easily and spend more time working and less time commuting.

Making life easier for everybody in big cities (when the global population is becoming more and more urban) is what politicians should be working forward and is definitely a way to support the economy, and more importantly the people in general, and leap frog the Old World, bogged down by legacy systems.

And mass transportation systems are not the only way up and coming countries are leaping forward, telecommunication is too. There not enough money or real reason to develop a wired phone grid in these countries, that is why wireless communication (voice and data) are developing fast (this report is a good summary and this one from ATKearney is more comprehensive). 3G and LTE are everywhere and relatively cheap. Internet access comes through a phone or a tablet screen more often than a computer's and it makes a world of difference. But that will be for another post.

My dear Europe should be worried when looking at up and coming countries like Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia. There is a lot of exciting things happening there. But I am not sure it even wants to look around. Anyway, I will keep looking for other cool technological implementations. Until next time!