Bank of East Asia joins the mobile payments race as traditional lenders challenge tech firms

Bank of East Asia has become the latest lender to join the mobile payments fray in Hong Kong with the launch on Monday of the first all-in-one electronic payment platform for merchants.

At present, restaurants and shops that accept credit cards and other forms of mobile payment have to install different devices to process each type of transaction.

BEA is launching a consolidated platform called the i-Payment hub which allows the merchant to use a single device to accept all credit cards and electronic payments such as WeChat Pay, Alipay, Apple Pay, Google Pay and JETCO Pay.

“The single platform and device will bring in greater convenience for merchants to cater for the needs of the increasingly tech-savvy younger customers who like to make payments via their smartphone.” said Vincent Hui, general manager and head of the personal banking division of BEA.

“The BEA i-Payment hub helps merchants to process different types of payment in a single device. It also helps them achieve faster payments and record-keeping,” he said.

BEA is the latest local lender to enter the fiercely competitive mobile payments market. HSBC, the largest lender in Hong Kong and Europe, in June increased the top-up limit on its e-payment app, PayMe, by 10 times to HK$50,000 and teamed up with e-commerce platform HKTVmall to allow customers to use PayMe to shop online.