Saturday, 20 April 2024
DBS and ComfortDelGro Taxi announce strategic payments partnership
DBS and ComfortDelGro Taxi announced that the two parties have entered into a strategic partnership to enhance payment services for their customers in Singapore. Users can now book and pay for their ComfortDelGro taxi rides directly and seamlessly through an integrated in-app booking function on DBS PayLah!. They will enjoy the same booking and payment functionalities as offered by the ComfortDelGro Taxi Booking App, and are not required to download an additional app.
The announcement follows the rollout of DBS PayLah! as an in-app payment in the ComfortDelGro Taxi Booking App in March 2020, where taxi passengers could select DBS PayLah! as a default QR code payment option within the app.
Jeremy Soo, DBS’ Singapore Head of Consumer Banking Group, said, “ComfortDelGro Taxi is our first transport merchant partner to be onboarded onto the DBS PayLah! platform, joining others such as cinema exhibitor Golden Village and restaurant-reservation booking platform Chope. This marks a significant milestone in our journey to inject dynamism into our mobile ecosystem platform, where we leverage technology and artificial intelligence to proactively piece together individual journeys for our customers. In doing so, we can provide personalised nudges and contextualised offers, which they will welcome as thoughtful reminders.”
“For example, when a customer has booked tickets for a movie at Golden Village in VivoCity, our intelligent banking capabilities will be able to provide a timely reminder to book a taxi through ComfortDelGro Taxi an hour before. There is still so much more we could do with technology to create a truly intuitive customer experience. To augment this, we remain firmly committed to ramping up our platform partnerships with lifestyle merchants in Singapore, so that our customers can enjoy a wider variety of goods and services through our DBS PayLah! Ecosystem,” Soo added.
Ang Wei Neng, CEO of ComfortDelGro Taxi, said, “Our partnership with DBS has come a long way and our collaborations have also grown over the years. We are glad to be the first transport operator to have the ComfortDelGro Taxi Booking App integrated into DBS PayLah! as we are always looking at ways to make taxi booking services more accessible to commuters. To help stop the spread of COVID-19, we also want to encourage commuters to switch to using in-app payments such as DBS PayLah! and to book a taxi through our apps so that contract tracing is easier."
DBS and ComfortDelGro Taxi first partnered in 2017 to introduce QR code payment for taxi rides, which helped pave the way for consumers in Singapore to use QR code payments widely in everyday transactions. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, DBS recorded some 20% of QR code transactions, which took place within the transport segment.
Earlier in February, both parties also collaborated on an initiative to encourage commuters to use cashless payment for street hail fares to help facilitate contact tracing during the COVID-19 situation. Customers would get $1.44 (SGD 2) off and a 10% admin fee waiver with their DBS/POSB Card when they pay for their taxi fares via the 'Pay for Street Hail' feature on the ComfortDelGro Taxi Booking App. As of mid-June 2020, over 50,000 redemptions had been made.
Soo also said, “We seek mutually beneficial relationships for our merchant partners in every collaboration that we do. The circuit breaker period has not been easy for most, and especially for those who work as freelancers. As services gradually resume during phase 2 of Singapore’s reopening, we hope to help boost demand for our partners with our contextualised offers, and will double down on enabling our technology capabilities to do so.”
Re-disseminated by The Asian Banker
