QR codes are everywhere! Paying using digital money nowadays is catching up in the Philippines mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The less frequent one would have to hand out and receive [dirty] cash, the better. Asia United Bank (AUB) offers a way to make cashless payments easier both to customers and business owners through the AUB PayMate platform.
What is AUB PayMate?
AUB PayMate is a mobile application that allows merchants to enable their businesses for cashless transactions with customers via their preferred e-money / e-wallet accounts.
The following e-money applications work with AUB PayMate (as of August 2020). Featured among them thus far are four Philippine (local) and three Chinese (international) e-wallets:
One of the strengths of this pioneering platform is that it also allows the business to cater to foreigner-tourists. Credit card usage is still a struggle for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Having PayMate as an “acquirer” for these transactions is definitely a big boost.
All payments are transacted in Philippine Peso (PHP) currency. International e-wallet partner currencies are converted to PHP in real-time at the point of transaction.
Traditional QR Code Payment
Payments with AUB PayMate are quite similar to the existing experience when paying via e-wallets these days. The most basic way is finding one of these QR codes displayed near payment counters in shops.
If you are a Gcash user for example, it’s just a matter of opening your app like the usual. You scan the QR code displayed and then type the amount due. There’s virtually no difference process-wise!
Scan-to-Pay with Integrated Amount Due
When paying using e-wallets, we would usually double-check if we typed in the amount due correctly. You would not want to be debited an excess amount, right? AUB PayMate improves on this by allowing the cashier to indicate the amount due via the mobile application itself.
Payments can be done in two ways:
- The cashier generates a specific QR code that the customer scans using his/her preferred e-wallet app; or,
- The cashier scans the QR code that the customer’s e-wallet app generates.
The first scenario involves scanning a QR code generated from the cashier’s AUB PayMate app. It’s similar to the printed standees near the cashier, except that this one has a specific amount. The QR code is scannable for various e-wallets (as indicated in the previous section).
In the second scenario, the customer may generate his/her own QR code if the e-wallet app supports it. For example, Gcash can generate its own QR code that can be presented to cashiers.
The amount will then be debited from the customer’s e-wallet upon confirmation of the transaction!
Business Benefits
The AUB PayMate platform doesn’t just provide payment convenience to the customers. Various features are also available for the merchant, some of which include the following:
- Real-time payment transaction status notification
- Transaction list (and details)
- Sales Summary for the day
- Refund feature
- Cashier management
Interested merchants may contact AUB for signing up and onboarding.
Conclusion
We have just walked through the general features of the AUB PayMate platform. Paying during this time of pandemic can be managed by using a cashless solution. By enabling a common platform with which more e-wallet apps can participate, more customers can use their own preferred apps to pay using QR codes.
Have you seen the AUB PayMate logo in one of your cashless payments recently? How was the experience? Let us know below!
thank you Ronx….
You’re welcome, Ms. Carla! 🙂