GrabPay, the mobile wallet of Southeast Asia’s leading app Grab, has teamed up with SM Investments Corp. to accept QR code payment in SM Cinemas.
“The Philippines is ripening for a digital payments revolution. In the Philippines, we are seeing consistent increase in our GrabPay user base, with a 130 percent growth from the first quarter of 2018 to present,” said GrabPay managing director for Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines Ooi Huey Tyng.
“As the leading super app in Southeast Asia, we are excited to take our innovative mobile wallet GrabPay outside of the Grab app and bring it closer to the everyday lives of Filipinos, starting with SM Cinema,” Tyng added.
GrabPay is rolling out in all SM cinemas in Metro Manila and Cebu this month and will be available nationwide by the end of 2019. Select SM Cinema kiosks will also offer exclusive GrabPay snacks and drinks to GrabPay users.
GrabPay will also be available online through the SM Cinema website to let users to purchase their movie tickets in advance. To use the service, they simply have to go to the SM Cinema website, select ticket orders, and choose GrabPay at checkout. This makes it more convenient for customers that want to secure the best seats without lining up for tickets.
“We have always strived to provide our patrons with the best cinema experience in the country, and we continuously invest in new technologies to further improve our services. With a shared vision of creating meaningful and better experiences for our customers, partnering with Grab to elevate the SM Cinema experience from ticketing to watching films will help us achieve our goal,” said SM Lifestyle Entertainment Inc. senior assistant vice president for ad and corporate sales Maria Isabel Santillian.
GrabPay first entered into a strategic partnership with SMIC in November to jointly develop products and services that will promote cashless transactions across the Philippines. GrabPay and SMIC’s partnership aims to open up opportunities to take more Filipinos into a more cashless society. This involves the integration of GrabPay with the different companies of the SM group.