Banking wallets see a tough time ahead

Among the mobile wallets, Apple Pay is growing faster than other wallets in the UAE, experts said. “The reason we feel is that it [Apple Pay] is used by middle- to higher-income segment and those people are well read and open to accepting innovative payment solutions much faster than others,” said Pankaj Kundra, head of payments at Mashreq.

“I think that consolidation is difficult to predict but clearly Apple and Samsung are the two large players in the device market and they have an equal kind of market share. I think while most banks are coming out with their own wallets, it is going to a tough journey for the banking wallets or bank-specific wallets to differentiate in the market and that is the reason why Apple Pay or Samsung Pay has taken off,” he said.

The simple reason is that they [Apple and Samsung] are giving a far better user interface and user experience. These are global companies and spending billions of dollars on the platform, which no single bank can afford on their own, Kundra said.

With Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, he said a customer use any card as a wallet while compared to bank-specific cards on a bank wallet.

With different payment options, Suvo Sarkar, senior executive vice-president, head of retail banking and wealth management at Emirates NBD, said that it can be confusing for consumers.

“However, we anticipate convergence in the near future. It is the customer that will ultimately decide what makes sense in terms of interoperability, speed and ease of use,” he said.