Buzzebees aims to blaze trail in Thailand for digital wallets
BUZZEBEES AIMS to become the first digital-wallet payment gateway in the country, according to chief executive officer Michael Chen. The service will enable connections with online banking at any bank through a high-security mobile e-wallet platform.
The company also plans to enable users to collect and redeem reward points easily by scanning their mobile devices on EDC (electronic data capture) machines nationwide.
Buzzebees is providing a payment-acceptance system connected with department stores, modern trade and shops through its e-wallet platform.
It already provides this service for TrueMoney.
Chen said the company also provided a mobile customer relationship management (CRM) platform to more than 40 corporate partners such as Total Access Communication (DTAC) and Tesco Lotus, serving more than 30,000 shops. It expects this number to jump to 100,000 shops within a couple of years. The mobile CRM platform now has around 24 million users, expected to exceed 30 million by the end of this year.
The firm also provides other services such as an e-commerce platform, digital media and a redemption service for reward points.
Buzzebees conducted a survey last August on using mobile devices for making payments. Of the sample of 2,000 Thai smartphone users, 50 per cent said they were already using their mobile devices to make payments. While two out of three said they would continue to use mobile payments at the same rate they were doing currently, at five times per month on average, one-third said they would do it more frequently.
In 2016, the total value of mobile payments reached about Bt90 billion.
Thailand now has more than 42 million Internet users, which is expected to surpass 45 million by the end of this year.
