Wirecard sets up new payments partnerships

Wirecard has most recently entered into a payments partnership with Grab, a super app in Southeast Asia, that will see the digital fintech process transactions made via the GrabPay e-wallet, starting with Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore

Munich-headquartered digital fintech Wirecard has struck two new payments partnerships and developed a prototype interactive in-store screen.

Wirecard has entered into a payments partnership with Grab, a super app in Southeast Asia, that will see the digital fintech process transactions made via the GrabPay e-wallet, starting with Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore.

Consumers can use their GrabPay e-wallet, which is accepted by more than 600,000 merchants and small businesses in Southeast Asia, to pay for transactions online and offline, such as for ride-hailing or food delivery, but can also use it to pay for purchases on ecommerce sites or at physical stores.

Through this partnership, Wirecard will process card transactions for GrabPay via its digital financial commerce platform and will extend the app to more merchants to expand the acceptance of the mobile payment method.

Reuben Lai, senior managing director of Grab Financial Group, said: “We are thrilled to partner with Wirecard as we progress on our journey of building a cashless economy for millions of businesses across Southeast Asia. Wirecard’s innovative mobile payments solutions will not only complement our GrabPay e-wallet platform, but also offer businesses and consumers the opportunity to transact with greater security, convenience and flexibility.”

Wirecard has also teamed up Klarna, the payments and shopping provider, to launch a new enhanced joint payment solution.

All three Klarna shopping methods, Pay Now, Pay Later and Klarna Financing, can now be embedded into merchants’ checkout via a single integration through the Wirecard digital financial commerce platform to boost average order value, conversions and fuel growth for merchants.

The new solution is available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Netherlands and the UK. Wirecard and Klarna expect to add the US, Australia and other countries later in 2020.

“We are proud to team up with Wirecard to combine the best of our offerings into a single solution,” said Luke Griffiths, commercial vice president at Klarna. “Our joint partnership will enhance both the merchant and end-customer experiences, while expanding our footprint to more geographies. We are looking forward to launching this attractive solution on a global scale.”

Estonian firm Xolo, whose company management platform offers entrepreneurs a quick and easy means of launching in the EU, recently partnered with Wirecard to create a dedicated bank account for its customers.

The new 360° Retail Experience from Wirecard, meanwhile, has been developed to meet the demands of modern shoppers.

The 360° Retail Experience, designed with experiential retail studio #SHOWROOMING, is a multi-touch screen equipped with capacitive object recognition.

The shopper can take an item from the store, place it on the screen and be presented with various features, including hyper-personalisation, social media sharing and instant checkout.

The possibility to checkout via app or mobile site, which can be tailored to the retailers’ preference, and then have the item delivered to a preferred location, gives shoppers a unified commerce experience, according to Wirecard.

Jörn Leogrande, executive vice president at Wirecard Labs, said: “Shoppers want more cutting-edge tech, and retailers want to delight shoppers while bringing them back into stores. The 360° Retail Experience delivers on both of these needs: customers can see products in person, while enjoying all the benefits technology brings to the retail experience including a quick, fully digital checkout. We see the 360° Retail Experience and similar solutions becoming widespread in the very near future, and we are excited to be at the forefront of this customer experience revolution.”

Image: Shutterstock

Mark Dugdale