Razer submits twofold proposal for unified e-payment system

Tech company Razer has kept its word to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong within the two-week deadline set by its chief executive Tan Min-Liang.  Yesterday (September 7), Razer submitted its proposal for a unified e-payment system.

Last month, Mr Lee had said in his National Day Rally that Singapore will go bigger on e-payments, in line with its Smart Nation ambitions. In August 20, Mr Tan had given his word on Tweeter to Mr Lee on an e-payment system nationwide in 18 months. In response, Mr Lee had requested for a proposal, “make me a proposal and I will study it seriously.”

The twofold proposal submitted includes:

1. Provision of feedback and advisory services on the Common Epayment Framework (CEF), a common e-payments framework managed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) for an open and interoperable payments system that can accommodate several existing payment methods.
2. Development and support of an existinge-payment solution such as Alipay from China, or a new solution built by Razer, called Razerpay.

The new e-payment solution, dubbed Razerpay, will set its focus on “end-users, consumers, and businesses in Singapore to establish an epayment, cashless service to accept digital transactions over cash instruments.”

Razer plans to pour $10 million as seed funding in the project, and staff it with Singaporean experts who will develop and drive it. Razor said there will be 6 open job positions for engineers, business leads, payment services experts, and legal eagles.

It expects to sign up at least 1 million ewallets from October 2017 to May 2019.

According to Razer, in the event that a different unified e-payment system gains major adoption, it will pull RazerPay out and instead, divert its resources to supporting that solution through an advisory board of experts.

Razer, the US headquartered company, is best known for its line of gaming accessories, with recorded revenues of US$392 million (S$528 million) last year.

The proposal has been submitted to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office (SNDGO).

Analysts expressed that although Razer’s proposal is strategically sound, it does not formulate anything new to industry players. Also, getting people to use RazerPay might not be easy for the firm.

Mr Tan fully accepts the challenge ahead set out for the company.

“When we set out to disrupt the gaming industry, no one believed we could pull it off either,” he said. “We are not in the business of talking but doing, so let’s see if Singapore is a cashless society in 18 months – whether RazerPay is successful or otherwise.”