Thanks to mahjong and poker, HSBC’s e-wallet hits new milestone on pandemic-driven surge in online payments

Hong Kong has seen a three-fold jump in transaction volume passing through HKMA’s Faster Payment System

Protests, and now Covid-19, have quickened the transition to electronic payment platforms from cash and plastic cards

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PayMe is a peer-to-peer payment app introduced by HSBC in Hong Kong in February 2017. It allows users to transfer funds and pay participating merchants for online or in-store purchases. Photo: Handout.

Published: 9:30am, 25 May 2020Updated: 9:30am, 25 May 2020

HSBC’s digital payment platform PayMe is enjoying a surge in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic, hitting a new milestone since its introduction in 2017, as consumers go online to pay for everything from face masks to virtual social games.

Its users reached the 2 million landmark last week, the lender said, representing a 25 per cent jump from a year earlier. The increase, together with 10 other e-wallets in the city, helped underpin a three-fold surge in transactions through the faster payment system (FPS) maintained by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA).

“We have seen above-average growth in registration and more active usage of PayMe over these few months of Covid-19 pandemic,” Kerry Wong Chu Po-yin, managing director and head of PayMe, said in an interview. “The increase is seen in settling of bills, including those related to online social games such as mahjong and poker.”

The breakthrough is a consolation of sorts for the city’s dominant lender in a year of mixed blessings. While commendable in supporting the city’s stricken businesses and consumers with loan relief, the bank also provoked ire among investors for scrapping stock dividend to conserve cash and ride out the current health crisis.

Kerry Wong Chu Po-yin, managing director and head of HSBC’s PayMe unit, seen during an interview with SCMP on May 21. Photo: Jonathan Wong

The pandemic has forced consumers to step up their purchases online as companies asked employees to work from home to help contain the outbreak. Before the Covid-19 struck in January, street protests had driven consumers to electronic platforms as bank branches became targets of attacks.

PayMe achieved the first million users in July 2018, 17 months after its introduction. About 80 per cent of its users have been active during the past few months, HSBC’s Wong said. For example, some merchants recorded 15,000 to 40,000 transactions involving surgical masks alone in a single day, she added.

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