Asia is reshaping the future of digital payments. From QR-code ubiquity, to super app ecosystems and interoperable payment channels across borders, the region has embraced the immediacy of mobile devices more fully than any other.
This has led analysts to wonder whether mobile payment trends there might be a signal marker for the next chapter in mobile finance in other parts of the world.
Asia’s unique flavor of super app usage and innovative biometric authentication might not be quite so simple to replicate in other regions, for reasons we’ll explore later, but leaders and innovators around the world are watching on closely. For those seeking to build the digital infrastructure of the future, Asia is arguably the most interesting place to look for inspiration.
But where innovation moves fast, new threats follow - novel attack vectors are emerging and evolving all the time. The Asian mobile payment landscape provides us with insights about the type of protection mechanisms that are required for mobile apps to defend themselves today. And it offers us clues about the kind of security that will be required in the future.
We'll unpack all of this in the paragraphs below.
Examining Asia’s mobile payment landscape
Asia isn’t one homogenous market, of course. It’s a patchwork of different cultures, economies, user behaviors, and regulatory frameworks. We know that daily digital habits aren’t the same in Delhi, Bangkok, Shanghai, and Seoul.
That said, when it comes to digital payments, there are some unifying themes that have emerged in recent years:
Perhaps the most obvious is Asia’s mobile-first behavior. In some SE Asian countries in particular, many users leapfrogged desktop internet access altogether. A high proportion of young, digitally-savvy citizens means that the mobile device has been - and remains – people’s main portal to the online world. And that helps to make mobile apps the go-to for almost every activity; including payments.
When the World Economic Forum carried out some research into the global adoption of e-wallets, for example, nine of the top 10 were Asian countries, with Thailand, Vietnam, and India making up the top three.
QR code dominance is another trend that links the majority of Asian markets. QR code-based payments are the method of choice for small street food vendors and large retail chains alike. They offer a simple, low-cost, and efficient transaction method without the need for heavier infrastructure demanded by more traditional POS systems. This reduces barriers to entry and lessens friction, opening up the digital economy to everyone. History has taught us that the simplest tech for users to get to grips with will win out and dominate, one way or another. But it’s also true that the most intuitive, immediate tech habits are not always the safest.
Asia is also famous for its super apps. Platforms like WeChat, Alipay, Gojek, and Grab bundle messaging, e-commerce, transportation, food delivery, and payments into one seamless experience. This has obvious benefits for end users who can manage and sync a range of day-to-day digital activities using a single application. We’ll explore super apps and why they haven’t become quite as common in other markets later.
Unlike in other regions, there’s also more maturity when it comes to payment interoperability across countries in Asia. There’s a strong desire to reduce friction and make cross-border transactions easier and cheaper for people to make.
These trends have resulted in mobile payments in Asia looking quite different compared with other regions.
Payment interoperability and regional integration
A big trend in recent years in Southeast Asia has been the push for interoperability between national QR code systems. Central banks and payment authorities are working together to connect systems across borders, enabling travelers to make payments in foreign countries using their domestic wallets.
One example is the linkage between Thailand’s PromptPay and Singapore’s PayNow systems; a scheme that allows individuals to make real-time, low-cost transfers of up to around US $700 per day. There are still costs applied to make transactions in Thailand (it’s free in Singapore), and there is a small foreign exchange markup applied by the banks issuing the transfer, but the overall fee is much lower than what senders used to have to pay (up to 10% of the total amount). And the speed is a massive game changer; historically cross-border transfers might have taken several working days to process.
Other countries, including Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, are also collaborating through ASEAN initiatives to expand this network. The World Economic Forum forecasts the value of gross digital payments across the six largest ASEAN economies to rise to close to $1.2 trillion by 2025. And so there is a great incentive to facilitate these transactions.
This interoperability of mobile payments in Asia has practical benefits for tourism, trade, and remittances, but it’s also a sign of something much deeper: there’s a shared commitment in the region to embracing seamless, mobile-native financial ecosystems that make finance easier for people.
The world is changing, and becoming more global than ever in outlook. From businesses operating in different continents to digital nomads moving countries several times a year, frictionless payments across borders are now expected or even demanded by consumers - particularly from those who have seen what is possible with mobile payments in Asia. But the reality in other regions is often a bit of a let down. There is often a lot of legacy complexity when it comes to traversing payment networks and connections around the world. Whether other regions like Latin America and Europe can match the seamless direction of travel in Asia remains to be seen.
Asian super apps are redefining finance
Asian super apps like Alipay, WeChat Pay, Gojek, and Grab have redefined what a single application is capable of, by combining daily smartphone activities like social interactions, e-commerce, and financial services.
These apps offer frictionless in-app payments alongside other functionalities and services such as lending. The vast quantity of data that they process (about a range of activities – not only financial) means that they can leverage insights to personalize financial offers in real-time. They provide the convenience of a single interface for day-to-day interactions and transactions, removing the need to interact with traditional banks at all to some extent.
As we said earlier, some Asian consumers skipped desktop internet access altogether, and traditional financial institutions are also less entrenched than in other markets. The upshot of this is the meteoric rise of platforms like WeChat in China (which is integrated into the daily lives of over a billion users). Asian super apps are more than just wallets: they’re financial ecosystems.
Super apps make everything so seamless and convenient that there is very little need or incentive for users to leave. They can chat with their friends, order food, and check their bank account in a few seconds. The benefits to developers of super apps are just as impressive; the amount of data they can collect about a vast array of activities means they have a detailed window into the digital lives of millions (and sometimes even billions) of people. This is incredibly valuable.
And so, the question that is often asked is: Why aren’t super apps a thing in the rest of the world?
Why isn’t there a super app in the US, for example?
The answer might have more to do with history and culture than we think. Confucian values of harmony, hierarchy, and communal benefit dominate in Asia. And that means there tends to be more acceptance of centralization – either from government, private enterprises, or even digital platforms – so long as they offer convenience and make life easier. In the West, on the other hand, a culture that encourages debate, autonomy, and a healthy skepticism of central power bases (going back to Ancient Greek philosophers who were writing around the same time as Confucius) makes it harder for a company like Amazon or Meta to replicate what WeChat has achieved in China. These organizations are already the focus of antitrust laws, after all.
The security and compliance implications of Asian mobile payment trends
So, what do all of these Asian mobile payment trends mean for security?
The obvious danger of super apps from a security perspective is that there’s a broader attack surface; in theory there’s a lot more at risk. One compromised set of credentials or API might result in users’ banking credentials, digital identification, and healthcare data all being at risk, all at once. Attackers might look to reverse engineer a super app in order to discover (and even steal) IP, which is one of the reasons why robust encryption and obfuscation of application assets and logic is so important.
Another growing threat is unauthorized API access – whether that’s attackers exploiting older, outdated apps to circumvent security controls, or carrying out API requests from non-mobile endpoints, allowing them to avoid device-based security checks. Mobile API protection is therefore vital, as it allows you to verify the integrity and legitimacy of the application initiating an API request.
Device attestation and anti-malware protection is also vitally important to keep super apps safe from malware and other, evolving, on-device threats. Without it, malware can spread rapidly – as was the case with this example we investigated in India. The combination of the protection mechanisms above (and others) can help to maintain end user trust, which is crucial for super app success - whichever region you’re operating in.
QR code payments also come with a number of threats to be aware of. The most obvious of these is that some QR codes might not be what they seem. Fake and malicious QR codes can be generated fairly easily, with the intention of redirecting unsuspecting scanners to a bogus page where they might be instructed to click on a link or download a fake app. There’s also the danger of UI manipulation (where QR data is altered before it’s displayed or processed), and fake apps pretending to be legitimate payment tools.
There are different protection measures required to maintain the integrity of QR as a trusted payment method. One is runtime application self-protection (also known as RASP) which is able to detect and prevent emulators, debuggers, and repackaging tools – all of which can help attackers to carry out fraud via fake, cloned apps. Integrity verification and device binding can also be employed to prevent app impersonation, and UI protection can help to ensure fake or malicious scans don’t cause the damage intended.
The low barrier to attack with QR systems means that it’s vital security exists within the app itself rather than around it.
Cross border interoperability also comes with its own risks. The most significant is the trust gap between different mobile devices, platforms, and OS variants in diverse markets, meaning that there’s a higher risk of sensitive data exposure during transit and transactions. That’s where a device and hardware-agnostic virtual trusted execution environment (vTEE) can be hugely helpful, as it provides a secure, isolated environment for sensitive transactions to take place, mitigating the security weaknesses that are rife within complex, cross-border payment landscapes. Mobile wallet providers can make use of Trusted Applications within a vTEE, which brings strong security even to untrusted devices; and no device is more inherently untrusted as the mobile phone.
There are also varying regulatory requirements in place for mobile payments in different countries, but there are some which are universally respected and approved, such as PCI and EMVCo. So, it’s vital for wallet providers to make sure that their solution is approved by an industry body like this.
And the future?
Asian innovators have proved willing to test out new payment methods with a view to making them even more seamless and convenient. Take the palm payment pilot projects gaining traction across the region, for example.
Other biometric payments using facial recognition - and even voice payments - are being trialled, too.
But sometimes there’s a disconnect between convenience and security. As payment experiences become more seamless, they can also become more abstract; and that makes them harder to secure via traditional means. You can cancel your card, but you can’t reset your palm.
A trend we’re witnessing right now and anticipate seeing more of in the future is the stakes getting higher and damage getting harder to undo when tech transactions and interactions are simplified too much.
Change is so rapid these days that it can seem like a trick of the mind that scanning a QR code to buy street food once felt futuristic. It may feel quaint before we know it. But whatever replaces it - in Asia or beyond - must be grounded in security, not just convenience. Because there’s nothing convenient about losing your savings - or your reputation.
