PayMaya unveils virtual mall

Financial technology (fintech) player PayMaya launched on Thursday a virtual mall experience called PayMaya Mall, a feature that allows users to buy from over 100 merchants in the mobile app.

PayMaya users may buy from brands in the food, retail, pharmacy, grocery, and fashion industries, including Jollibee, McDonald’s, Goldilocks, Rustans, Park Outlet, Mercury Drug, Rose Pharmacy, Landers, All Home, and Boozy.

“Mall shopping is so ingrained in Filipino popular culture and the Covid-19 pandemic has drastically affected not just consumers but also, the growth of retail merchants. With the PayMaya Mall feature embedded in our app, we aim to reinforce our commitment to boost e-commerce and digital payments in the Philippines, supported by the full force and strength of our unique ecosystem,” PayMaya President Shailesh Baidwan said.

He noted that more brands are coming soon as PayMaya taps into its network of over 116,000 merchant touchpoints.

“With this initiative, we are bringing our partner merchants closer to our more than 28 million customers nationwide. Consumers, on the other hand, can get their regular shopping done from the convenience and safety of their own homes while enjoying exclusive perks and rewards—all through the PayMaya app.”

Mark Jason Dee, Head of Growth Marketing and Partnerships of PayMaya, noted that the service is free for its merchant partners.  This, he said, is PayMaya’s way of “helping businesses bounce back from the pandemic.”

“With our push towards embedded commerce within the PayMaya app, we aim to help foster the growth and recovery of local businesses. At the same time, we are offering a more convenient and rewarding shopping experience to all our PayMaya users,” Dee said.

PayMaya is fast becoming a preferred mode of payment for online shopping. In 2020 alone, PayMaya processed over P95 billion worth of online shopping transactions, helping push the share of digital payments for e-Commerce past 50 percent versus cash in 2020, based on industry estimates.

Dee said that the company is “not competing with e-commerce apps,” noting that some of them are PayMaya partners. He said the introduction of the new in-app mall feature provides merchants with better exposure to its user base,

“These merchants are our payment partners, we want them to be exposed to our more than 28 million users nationwide,” he said. “This reinforces our position to be the best and most rewarding e-wallet in the country.”