Grab, the south-east Asian ride-hailing company, has partnered with Mastercard to launch prepaid cards, in a move that will give both parties valuable consumer insight in one of the world’s most financially excluded regions.

The two companies aim to launch both virtual and physical versions of the prepaid cards in the first half of 2019, starting in Singapore, Grab’s home market, and the Philippines, with the intention of rolling out the service across the region. 

The cards will give Grab and Mastercard significant insight into consumer trends in a region where 200m people are expected to enter the middle class by 2030.

Grab, which was set up in 2012 and is currently valued at $11bn, is moving aggressively into sectors beyond ride-hailing, such as healthcare, food delivery and mobile payments, helping to cement its dominant position in the region at a time when rivals, including Indonesia’s Go-Jek, accelerate their own expansions.

Reuben Lai, senior managing director at Grab’s financial arm, said the new product would help Grab create products and services tailored to the needs of consumers and merchants, and price them effectively. 

Rama Sridhar, executive vice-president for digital and emerging partnerships and new payment flows at Mastercard, said pairing Grab’s existing insight into consumer behaviour with the US company’s data analytics and experience with financial institutions would help “create lending products, which is what most regulators are hoping for across south-east Asia”. 

Partnering with Grab gives Mastercard access to a region where credit card use has historically been low. According to Boston Consulting Group, there are 177 credit cards for every 100 people in the US, compared with 29 per 100 in Thailand and 5 per 100 in Vietnam.

“It helps us leverage Grab as a partner to tap into a huge demographic that was perhaps underserved until now,” said Ms Sridhar.

However, BCG said last month that in south-east Asia, where small businesses tend to prefer cash on delivery over credit cards, consumers are likely to “leap directly from cash to digital payments, skipping credit and debit cards”.

Asked who Grab’s competitors would be in prepaid cards, Mr Lai said: “Seventy per cent [of south-east Asians] are unbanked. Ninety per cent don’t have a card. Who is our competitor? Cash or digital wallets?”