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20 September, 2016Euromoney, September 2016
Citi is joining up with the Singapore-based ride-hailing service Grab in a partnership that will allow people to burn credit card loyalty points in exchange for taxis – a world first.
It’s a more influential development than it might at first appear. For Citi, it’s a way to acquire customers and to increase the frequency with which they use their cards; for Grab, it’s a step towards a bigger ambition of becoming an Asean-wide payments platform, perhaps a southeast Asian Alipay.
“The way we think about the ride-sharing space is similar to how we think about the bill-payment space: recurring payment transactions,” says Harpreet Grewal, Asia-Pacific product director for Citi.
“People might take a couple of taxis every week. And what we’ve found is that when you put a card into a regular payment solution – like a standing instruction for a utility bill – in the long term those are more profitable than episodic spend. It leads to higher engagement on the account.”
Full article: http://www.euromoney.com/Article/3589064/Asia-Citi-grabs-a-ride-in-taxi-tie-up
