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Lazada rolls out e-wallet for quicker payments

Posted on April 10, 2018 //

Lazada rolls out its own Lazada e-wallet, which allows for more seamless purchasing on the e-commerce site – Lazada

Removing more barriers from impulsive shopping, e-commerce site Lazada now allows users to make one-click payments using its new e-wallet.

The e-wallet can be topped up through several methods, including credit and debit cards, payments via 7-Eleven stores and bank transfers.

The maximum the e-wallet can hold is RM4,999.

To incentivise users to adopt the Lazada e-wallet, the site is offering discounts and rebates, in addition to allowing for one-click payments and speeding up refunds.

For instance, it has introduced Wallet Tuesdays which offers 10% cashback for purchases made in app with a minimum spend of RM100. However, the max discount offered will be RM20.

It is not clear at this time if the Lazada e-wallet would be opened up for payments outside the site.

According to Lazada’s promotion page, users can activate the e-wallet by requesting Lazada to issue a confirmation e-mail as a security measure.

Users would also need to confirm their mobile number so they could receive OTP (One Time Password) messages when using Lazada e-wallet.

Source: The Star Online

Filed Under: Business Tech //

Alibaba buys $9.5b food-delivery startup

Posted on April 9, 2018 //

An Ele.me deliveryman on his electric scooter. Photo credit: Alibaba

Jack Ma just ordered some Chinese takeaway – he’s bought food-delivery startup Ele.me in a multibillion-dollar deal.

Ma’s Alibaba announced this morning that it’s taking “full ownership” of Ele.me – which means “Hungry?” in Chinese – by topping up the stake it had in the startup after earlier investments. The buyout figure isn’t disclosed, but the online shopping giant says Ele.me is now valued at US$9.5 billion, up from the US$5.5 billion it was pegged at last year.

Ele.me’s blue-and-white delivery personnel and their electric scooters are a common sight across China. The service gets 9 to 10 million orders each day, which its riders dash to collect and deliver from around 1.3 million participating stores, including major chains like KFC and Starbucks. Its app claims to have 260 million users.

Food fight

Even before today’s deal, Alibaba and Ele.me have been working closely together, with the startup’s foodie offerings available from within Alibaba’s spin-off Alipay mobile wallet app, which has 450 million users.

China’s booming food-delivery market was worth US$31.9 billion in 2017, up 23 percent from the year before.

Alibaba’s Ele.me is locked in a fierce battle for all that takeout food, with archrival Tencent backing two different apps, Meituan and Dianping. Those three apps dominate the market.

Source: Tech in Asia

Filed Under: Business Tech, Technology //

Grab launches a bike-sharing service in Southeast Asia

Posted on March 12, 2018 //

After much speculation, Southeast Asian Uber rival Grab has jumped into the bike-sharing space after it launched a service in Singapore.

GrabCycle Beta will offer services from a range of services, including bike-sharing services oBike — which includes Grab as an investor — GBikes and Anywheel, plus electric scooter rental Popscoot. The project is the first to launch under GrabVentures, Grab’s new “innovation arm” which is focused on projects in verticals beyond taxi rides such as payments and transportation.

The project ties into Grab’s payment efforts because GrabPay credits, its virtual currency, are used to pay to rent a cycle.

While dock-less bikes have their fans for making access to bikes easier, they have also adopted criticism for large cycle ‘dumps’ which have become commonplace across China. Grab is looking to mitigate that concern by partnering with Singapore island resort Sentosa, which will feature dedicated parking stations for bikes. The company plans to add other partners to help avoid “polluting public spaces” with cycles.

“In Singapore, approximately one in five car commutes are three kilometers and under. There is huge potential to convert this segment of commuters into bike-sharing users, in support of the country’s car-lite ambition,” Grab wrote in an announcement that was distributed to press today.

In adopting a marketplace-style model from the get-go, Grab is avoiding the issues that Didi — a Grab investor — encountered in China when it invested in bike-sharing company Ofo. As demand for bike-sharing rocketed, Ofo found itself becoming a potential threat to Didi. Throw in some internal politics between investor and investee, and Didi moved to counter the younger company by introducing a marketplace that served bikes of its own, alongside those from Ofo and Bluegogo.

The move was essentially aimed at relegating Ofo to a feature within Didi’s app in a bid to remove the need for consumers — and potential Didi customers — to install Ofo’s own app. That’s important because Mobike, an Ofo rival, has moved into taxi services and there is the potential for Ofo to do the same at some point.

Back to Southeast Asia, Grab’s service is initially operational in Singapore, where the firm is headquartered, but there is the potential to expand it to other markets in Southeast Asia, a spokesperson confirmed. Right now, the core Grab service is present in eight countries across the region with 86 million downloads and 2.6 million drivers.

Rumors persist that Grab is on the brink of agreeing to a deal that will see it acquire Uber’s Southeast Asia business in exchange for equity, according to Bloomberg. Any such deal would make it the dominant player across the region bar Indonesia, where local unicorn Go-Jek remains top of the pile.

Uber has moved into bike-sharing in the U.S. but it has not done the same in Southeast Asia despite its head of the region admitting to TechCrunch that the company is studying space.

Source: TechCrunch

Filed Under: Business Tech, Mobile World, Technology //

Grab is said to close deal for Uber South-East Asia business

Posted on March 9, 2018 //

Grab would buy out Uber’s operations in certain markets in South-East Asia and Uber will take a stake in Grab. — Bloomberg

Grab, the dominant ride-hailing service in South-East Asia, is close to finalising a deal to acquire Uber Technologies Inc’s business in the region and may sign a deal this week or next, according to people familiar with the matter.

Under terms of the proposed agreement, Grab would buy out Uber’s operations in certain markets in South-East Asia and Uber will take a stake in Grab, the people said, asking not to be named because the talks are private.

The structure would be similar to the deal Uber struck with Didi Chuxing in China in 2016, when the San Francisco-based company sold its local operation in exchange for equity in the company.

Under a scenario being considered, Uber’s stake in Grab is likely to be in the high teens or 20%, said one of the people. Grab has separately been in discussions with existing backers, including SoftBank Group Corp, and new investors for additional capital, according to people familiar with the talks.

Grab was most recently valued at US$6bil (RM23bil) according to CB Insights. The current talks may still fall apart or the terms and timing may change. Grab and Uber declined to comment.

For Grab co-founder and chief executive officer Anthony Tan, the truce would bring to an end a bruising battle for leadership in South-East Asia’s fast-growing ride-hailing market.

The companies have been locked in a struggle for control of as many cities as possible across South-East Asia, home to 620 million people.

Uber’s new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, has been pushing to clean up the company’s financials in preparations for an initial public offering next year. Pulling out of markets like South-East Asia would boost profits at a company that has burned through US$10.7bil (RM41.7bil) since its founding nine years ago.

Khosrowshahi signaled during a trip through Asia last month that he is committed to key markets such as Japan and India.

Japan’s SoftBank became the largest shareholder in Uber in January, setting off speculation that it would encourage ride-hailing startups in its portfolio to cut back on competing with each other. SoftBank also holds stakes in China’s Didi and Ola, the India startup vying with Uber for leadership in that market.

Grab, which has more than 81 million mobile app downloads, currently offers services in 178 cities across Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia. — Bloomberg

Source: The Star Online

Filed Under: Business Tech, Mobile World //

China is reportedly moving to clamp down on bitcoin miners

Posted on January 12, 2018 //

China banned bitcoin, ICOs and now it appears to be clamping down on Chinese miners, an important group estimated to produce some three-quarters of the world’s supply of bitcoin.

According to a leaked January 2 memo from the ‘Leading Group of Internet Financial Risks Remediation’ — the country’s internet finance regulator which initiated the clampdown on bitcoin — bitcoin miners should make an “orderly exit” from China because they have consumed “huge amounts of resources and stoked speculation of ‘virtual currencies.”

Details of the memo were posted on Twitter by Chinese blockchain industry executive Elly Zhang and confirmed by Quartz.

The group itself doesn’t control national energy usage but it is an influential political vehicle that’s led by the deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBC), Pan Gongsheng. To remove miners, the group asked its local offices to look into policies around price, tax, land usage and environmental concerns.

Its local representatives must report back on their progress of removing miners in their region on a monthly basis, according to Quartz.

The situation is complicated by the fact that many miners, and particularly those in China, make use of cheap power, or flock to locations where there’s excess capacity. In some cases, mining businesses partner with local governments to ensure a steady supply of electricity at discounted rates, with a portion of the profits returned to the local authorities. That’s offered a welcome economic boost in regions where more traditional industries are struggling.

But there’s no smoke without fire. It certainly seems like central government has a plan to stamp out the miners. Beyond today’s news, both Bloomberg and Reuters last week reported on the PBC’s plans to slowly cut down on the number of miners. That, apparently, includes dissolving any such agreements and deals that had previously been struck.

Perhaps wary of additional regulation, China’s bitcoin mining giants have already branched out to open new facilities in countries like Iceland, Canada and the U.S. Nonetheless, a serious move to crush the mining industry has the potential to impact bitcoin.

Disclosure: The author owns a small amount of cryptocurrency. Enough to gain an understanding, not enough to change a life.

Source: TechCrunch

Filed Under: Business Tech //

The US Government blocks MoneyGram’s $1.2B sale to Alibaba’s Ant Financial

Posted on January 4, 2018 //

The proposed acquisition of global payment service MoneyGram by Alibaba’s Ant Financial is off after the U.S. Government blocked the $1.2 billion deal.

Ant Financial, the Alibaba affiliate which controls Alipay — China’s top mobile wallet — and other financial services, announced a deal to buy Nasdaq-listed MoneyGram in April 2017 after it beat off a rival bid from Euronet. Ant initially bid for MoneyGram in January 2017 as a means to develop its cross-border payment network into the U.S., and major corridors including India and the Philippines, but instead it will “explore and develop initiatives” to collaborate with MoneyGram’s business.

“The geopolitical environment has changed considerably since we first announced the proposed transaction with Ant Financial nearly a year ago. Despite our best efforts to work cooperatively with the U.S. government, it has now become clear that CFIUS [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] will not approve this merger,” MoneyGram CEO Alex Holmes said in a statement.

“Establishing this new strategic cooperation with MoneyGram will add a partner with global remittance capabilities to our ecosystem and, while Ant Financial won’t have a direct ownership relationship with MoneyGram, we look forward to working closely with the MoneyGram team to make our platform even more accessible – particularly to unbanked and underserved communities globally – and create even better experiences for our customers,” added Doug Feagin, President of Ant Financial International.

Per terms of the agreement, Ant has paid $30 million to MoneyGram for terminating the acquisition process.

MoneyGram’s share price dropped by around 10 percent to $12.02 on the news, before recovering to around $12.40 in out-of-hours trading at the time of writing.

The collapse of the deal is a huge blow to Ant, which spent much of 2017 developing its mobile payment network beyond China and into Southeast Asia, India, Korea, Japan and other parts of Asia with a series of partnerships and investments. MoneyGram not only added the U.S. to that strategy, but it had the potential to give Ant a physical network of cross-border offices and a much large slice of the global cross-payment industry. But now it is not to be, and it will be interesting to see what approach Ant — which is hotly tipped to go public in a massive IPO — will take to fill the void beyond this new “strategic business cooperation” with MoneyGram.

The collapse of the deal marks a second China-led acquisition of a U.S. tech company to have failed during U.S. President Trump’s tenure. Back in September, a private equity group was blocked from purchasing Lattice Semiconductor due to potential security risks. Prior to the Trump administration, just three deals had been blocked over the past 27 years.

Source: TechCrunch

Filed Under: Business Tech //