Dubai: 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 innovate 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.

Different types of mobile wallets

Apple Pay: Works in the UAE with Apple phones and watches. It works with NFC-enabled machines.

Samsung Pay: Works in the UAE with certain Samsung phones and watches. It works with NFC-enabled machines and MST [Magnetic Secure Transmission]. MST means a credit or debit card swipe on a standard card reader.

PayPal: No acquirer is the UAE accepts PayPal or Android Pay. PayPal is accepted by some e-commerce players in the UAE but not by brick and mortar outlets and physical PoS machines.

Beam Wallet: It works in the UAE and can be downloaded on to any Android or iOS devices.

Emirates NBD Pay and Mashreq Pay: It enables payments via Visa and MasterCard on any NFC-enabled phone. The token service technology replaces cardholder information such as account numbers and expiry dates with a unique digital identifier, or token that can be used for payment without exposing a cardholder’s personal account information. It works only with UAE approved cards.

Google Pay: Not available in the UAE.

Etisalat Wallet: The wallet allows customers to make purchases, pay utility bills, transportation fees, top-up Etisalat’s mobile credit, etc.

WeChat Wallet: You can add your debit or credit cards, get money sent to you from a friend and pay for goods and services. Not available in the UAE.

Huawei Pay: Huawei has teamed up with payments provider UnionPay International to roll out its own service across the world. It is very likely to be in the UAE by next year. It is expected to be on their smartphones soon.

— N.K.C.

Factbox: What is a Mobile Wallet?

A mobile wallet is usually an account connected to a mobile phone number. Broadly speaking there are two types of wallets. The first is a mobile wallet with a stored value on it, for example, savings in combination with other features such as payments and a loyalty card. The money can be transferred to the mobile account either through an agent cash in, a transfer from other wallet user or a bank account/card connected to the mobile. This stored value represents electronic money that can be transferred between wallets, internationally or used to purchase goods or services. Another type of mobile wallet is a payment interface wallet that does not hold any stored value. This could be a solution where multiple existing debit/credit cards together with access keys, loyalty cards, etc, are managed but the money available on the different cards is handled outside of the wallet.

Factbox: UAE stats

Dh39 billion — Digital Purchases in 2017

19 per cent — Year-on-year growth in digital purchases

Over Dh6 billion — Internet retailing in 2017

16 per cent — Year-on-year growth in internet retailing

Dh14.8 billion — Online retailing is expected to reach in 2022

55 per cent — Consumer payment transactions made with cash during 2017

45 per cent — Consumer payment transactions made with the card (including mobile platforms)

Source: Euromonitor International