Visa promotes cross-border payment with LINE Pay! Tencent Pay also goes global, what's next for Asian payment?

Asia's largest FinTech event, the Singapore FinTech Festival 2024, will take place on November 6th. More than 500 financial industry players from around the world, including 11 Taiwanese FinTech companies, are expected to participate, attracting more than 60,000 visitors.

With the increasingly diverse payment methods, the payment industry leader Visa announced a series of services and products at the financial technology festival in the Asia-Pacific region, providing more payment methods and technologies, and entering the Asia-Pacific cross-border QR code payment market. Partners include Taiwan's third-party payment provider Line Pay. "Digital Times" on-site coverage of the three major highlights at the exhibition, giving a first look at the latest payment trends.

Highlight 1: Jointly promote QR Code cross-border payment service with LINE Pay

Visa announced that it will collaborate with Taiwan's LINE Pay, China's Lakala, Singapore's fear of missing out Pay, Malaysia's Touch’n Go Digital, Vietnam's VNPay, and Zalopay to allow consumers to scan the QR Code of partner operators for payment when traveling abroad.

This project is a collaboration between Visa and payment technology company Juspay. It will first launch in Singapore and gradually expand to other countries in the Asia-Pacific region by 2025.

The usage rate of QR Code payment is continuously increasing in the Asia-Pacific region. According to a survey by Visa, credit cards are the preferred payment method for 34% of Southeast Asian consumers, closely followed by QR Code at 26%, which should not be underestimated.

Visa's Head of Products and Solutions for Asia Pacific, T.R. Ramachandran, pointed out that enabling consumers to use QR code payments overseas, a payment experience common in domestic markets, would be a major step forward for the payment ecosystem in the Asia Pacific region.

Highlight 2: Tencent "Palm Payment" and Visa officially went overseas, the first stop in Singapore

Tencent has launched a payment method in China that allows users to complete transactions by scanning their palm prints. On November 6th, Tencent officially announced its partnership with Visa to expand into the international market. The first launch will be in Singapore, where Visa will invite cardholders from DBS Bank, OCBC Bank, and UOB Bank to experience the program.

Image source: Photograph by Xu Jingzhi. When registering, consumers need to first tap Visa and then scan their palm prints. After completing the verification test, they will be able to make payments by waving their hand in the future.

Consumers participating in the experience need to first tap the Visa card on the device and then scan their palm during registration. Once the verification is completed, it means success. After registration, consumers can make payments with a wave of their hand without the need to carry physical cards or mobile phones.

Palmprint recognition is a type of biometric recognition technology, just like fingerprint and facial recognition. Tencent's palmprint recognition technology has two verification steps, which are to identify palmprints and veins to ensure accuracy. Because palmprints can be recognized simply by placing the palm in the sensing position without direct contact, it is more privacy-friendly compared to other biometric recognition methods.

Visa's General Manager for Singapore and Brunei, Adeline Kim, pointed out that nearly 70% of Singaporean consumers consider this to be a secure payment method and are looking forward to enhancing customer payment experience through cooperation with Tencent.

Highlight 3: Visa's flexible credential technology can replace multiple cards, replacing traditional static credentials.

Visa Flexible Credential technology allows consumers to switch between debit cards, credit cards, installment payments, and point payments on the same card according to their payment needs. Consumers can set their preferences, such as automatically using a debit card for small purchases and choosing installment payments for high-value purchases.

Image source: Photography by Xu Jingzhi. T.R. Ramachandran, Visa's head of products and solutions in the Asia-Pacific region, pointed out that flexible certificates are an innovative technology that disrupts traditional static certificates.

In 2023, Visa partnered with Sumitomo Mitsui Card Company (SMCC) of Japan to launch the 'Olive Card', which has been used by over 3 million users and is actively promoting in other countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

T.R. Ramachandran pointed out that the innovation of elastic certificates lies in changing the limitations of traditional static certificates with fixed encoding. In the past, consumers had to carry multiple cards to meet various payment needs, such as signing financial cards, credit cards, or co-branded cards for specific channels, each with its own 16-digit card number definition.

Elastic credentials, on the other hand, use digital technology to connect multiple payment methods with a single card. In the future, banks can issue a set of credentials that can link to deposit accounts, accumulate points, and even airline miles, eliminating the need for consumers to carry multiple cards when going out. This not only simplifies the payment process, but also significantly reduces the issuing costs for banks.

The technology of flexible certificates is also expected to further integrate with AI in the future, automatically selecting the most suitable personalized payment method based on consumer scenarios, which will greatly rewrite today's payment experience and habits.

[Disclaimer] There are risks in the market, and investment should be cautious. This article does not constitute investment advice, and users should consider whether any opinions, viewpoints, or conclusions in this article are suitable for their specific circumstances. Therefore, investment is at your own risk.

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Original Title: "Visa collaborates with LINE Pay to promote cross-border payments! Tencent's "palm scanning payment" is also going overseas. What is the next step for the Asian payment market?"