Merchantrade Asia Sdn Bhd announced the activation of Google Wallet and Samsung Wallet support for its Merchantrade Money Visa Prepaid cardholders across Malaysia, Making Merchantrade Money the first homegrown non-bank e-money issuer in the country to support NFC phone-tap payments through both platforms.
Merchantrade Money Gains Tap-And-Pay Support
The integration allows users to digitize their multi-currency Visa prepaid cards into smartphone wallets, enabling card-not-present transactions accepted at more than 100 million Visa touchpoints globally. According to Merchantrade, transactions using NFC phone taps can clear in under a second at transit gates (which helps alleviate congestion) as well as at retail checkout points. Payments made through the feature draw directly from the user’s pre-converted multi-currency wallet balance, without additional foreign transaction fee markups.
“Enabling native NFC payments in Google Wallet and Samsung Wallet was a natural evolution to ensure a uniform, cardless experience at physical card terminals,” said Cindy Loo, Executive Vice President for Merchantrade Money. “Whether our cardholders are tapping at a local store in Klang or navigating payments overseas, we believe this update gives them the ultimate speed and convenience upgrade.”
The NFC payment functionality is powered by the Visa Token Service (VTS), which replaces card details with secure tokens during transactions. Samsung Wallet includes Knox-level hardware protection for physical taps and wearable devices, while Google Wallet supports checkout across mobile apps and web platforms. Merchantrade Money users can link their cards through the In-App Provisioning feature within the Merchantrade Money app, or by adding their card directly through the Google Wallet or Samsung Wallet interfaces.
Pokdepinion: Less friction for transactions means more transactions overall – everyone stands to gain from this.
