Over the years, consumers in Malaysia have been requesting banks, financial regulators, and tech companies to roll out more contactless payment options in our market. Among the name that has been echoed by consumers are Google Pay and interesting enough, CIMB’s name has recently appeared in the platform’s support document.
Before you get excited though, here is a kicker: it is not for CIMB Bank Malaysia. For those who are not aware of this, CIMB Bank is also present in other markets throughout Southeast Asia including Cambodia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
That being said, Singapore is the only Southeast Asian country that supports Google Pay contactless payment at the moment which explains why the feature can only be supported by credit cards that are issued by CIMB Bank Singapore. Then again, it is not available to all of its credit cards either.
This is because only the bank’s Mastercard Credit is listed in the support document and has been confirmed by the bank’s official website as well. CIMB Bank Singapore currently has four credit cards under its wings including the CIMB World Mastercard and the Mastercard-branded CIMB AWSM Card.
Meanwhile, Google has put this rather interesting remark in the same support document:
Your bank decides if its cards work with Google Pay. Banks may restrict any of its cards from making mobile payments.
Things are likely much more complex behind the scene but based on that remark alone, one might be wondering why banks in Malaysia still do not support Google Pay even though NFC-based payment terminals are no longer a rare sight in this country.
To date, Samsung Pay remains the only contactless payment platform made by a tech company that is officially available in Malaysia. On another hand, Garmin Pay support for Maybank cards turns out to be a technical trial and has never been made official until today, while Fitbit Pay missed its Q1 2020 launch window in our market despite claiming to have received the approvals from the authorities.
(Source: Google Pay Help via Android Police, CIMB Bank Singapore.)
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