INTERVIEW
Mastercard APAC flaunts innovation to stay ahead in the digital era The payments provider has been forging new tech-based products and forging relationships with startups.
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astercard is banking on its longstanding innovation and amping up partnerships with digital players to stay ahead of the neo-banks and fintechs that have further tightened the money game in Singapore and Asia. The entrance of digital firms into the banking space is an important evolutionary step for Singapore, Mastercard Asia Pacific executive vice president for services Matthew Driver said, as the increased competition will bolster innovation in the local banking industry. Contenders for the licenses include consortiums made up of e-commerce, telecommunications, and fintech firms. Currently, Mastercard has the upper hand in Singapore. Credit cards continue to make up the lion’s share of the card payments market in the island, at 60% in 2019, reports analytics firm GlobalData. But e-wallets are increasingly closing the gap, with the digital payments segment now making up US$14.27b in 2020 according to data firm Statista. By 2025, this value is expected to rise to $40.38b, a separate report by ResearchAndMarket noted. In an exclusive interview with Asian Banking & Finance, Driver shares how Mastercard has been preparing for the digital onslaught, and how digitisation will affect the domestic and regional banking industry as a whole. How does Mastercard APAC plan to position itself in Singapore and in the region with this dawning era of digital banks? When you think about it, Mastercard itself is one of the original fintech players, which created an international network more than 50 years ago connecting buyers (cardholders) and sellers (merchants), thereby reducing the need for cash. And as a fintech we have continued to innovate throughout our history—it’s part of our DNA. We started with enabling debit and credit card payments but quickly branched into other payment types as commerce globalized and e-commerce connected consumers to digital marketplaces all over the world. We have grown our payment capabilities extensively to cater for new clients, markets and opportunities, now offering real-time payment solutions and applications, advanced cybersecurity and fraud solutions, and a huge range of data, advisory, loyalty and engagement capabilities. We are also co-creating new services with partners
14 ASIAN BANKING AND FINANCE | q2 2020
Digital banks will significantly accelerate and deepen the use of physical and virtual payments solutions across the region.
Matthew Driver, Executive VP for Services, Mastercard APAC
to help enable commerce and financial inclusion like the Kionect Farmers network whilst advocating for diversity, decency and sustainability. We are the preferred partner of fintechs across the globe because we are global and flexible, we lean into our partnerships to create new solutions and we want to create social impact. We cultivate relationships with startups, have a globally established fintech accelerator programme called StartPath and, at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2019, we launched our Fintech Express programme as part of our global Mastercard Accelerate initiative designed to simplify the way our global payments work with fintechs around the world. How will digital banks affect the card and virtual payments in Singapore and in APAC? Digital banks will significantly accelerate and deepen the use of physical and virtual payments solutions across the region as payments are a great space where they can create relevant and impactful differentiation for their target customers. Neo-banks and fintech players are fast adopters of prepaid and debit cards, both physical and digital, often because prepaid platforms are very flexible and can be used for everything from travel and gifting to per-diem expenses and, in some cases, closed-loop payments. Digital banks like Monzo, N26 and Revolut all
