The Aimazing group during Slush Singapore in Sep 2016. PHOTO: JUN TING
With a launch of their commander module progressing this month, fledgling Singapore startup, Aimazing is a step closer to commercializing their new sound record resolution for mobile payments.
Aimazing’s idea is to offer a mobile payments marketplace a some-more permitted choice than a nearby margin communication (NFC) record now in use. The startup’s resolution has carried it to a tip 30 finish in Slush Singapore 2016, that was hold in September. It also warranted them a place in deteriorate 4 of Channel NewsAsia’s Start-UP program.
Aimazing vs. NFC chips
“Phones are done to furnish sound,” pronounced COO and co-founder Yar Hong Chiong. “Using sound, anyone with a smartphone can have entrance to mobile wallets.”
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To send remuneration around Aimazing, a user’s device plays a data-encrypted sound formula to a merchant’s device. This usually requires a microphone and speakers on both ends. NFC technology, on a other hand, requires a chip in a user’s smartphone and a specialised reader during a indicate of sale. Additionally, Apple’s handling complement restricts third parties from simply accessing and building module with a iPhone’s NFC chip.
These dual problems have singular a strech of mobile wallets like Singtel Dash and DBS Paylah.
From gaming to payments
CEO Jun Ting and CTO Kong Yi Kai started Aimazing final Apr as a diversion that authorised users to use credits to bid for equipment and make tiny online transactions.
Once a game’s user bottom reached a vicious scale, they designed to deliver a sound record that Yi Kai had developed, to concede offline purchases and make Aimazing a mobile wallet. However, this incited out to be costly.
“At one point, we said, ‘How can we concentration this business to make it some-more sustainable?’” Hong Chiong recalled. “So we pulled behind to try to sell this record to existent mobile wallets.”
Soon after he assimilated a team, Hong Chiong helped to trigger and govern a business concentration in Jun 2016. They combined an SDK or module growth kit, a cube of formula that would make merchants’ apps concordant with Aimazing’s technology.
Partnerships with Chope and Flezio
Following their concentration to a B2B model, a group of 3 successfully cumulative partnerships with Chope Singapore and, internal startup, Flezio. These partnerships would concede use of their use to promote document redemptions and, for Flezio members, entrance to co-working spaces.
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To redeem grill vouchers in their Chope Singapore accounts, business will accept a sound record encrypted with their singular document details, that they can play to a restaurant’s mobile device.
The technical sum for their commander module with Flezio are still being worked out, however, Hong Chiong pronounced that Flezio’s use of a record will expected engage an app that can beget membership sum in a form of a sound code. With a sound formula behaving as a practical membership card, users would be means to entrance a co-working spaces they book and keep an electronic record of entrance and exit times.
The commander module for Chope Singapore is slated to finish in Dec 2016, after that Aimazing skeleton to work with a pay-per-transaction business indication with their clients.
Potential to expand
With appropriation from an IJAM extend and an angel investment from Jon Tse, owner of Zookal, a startup will concentration on enlightening a record with a partners. They are also in talks with other clients to use sound record for digital doorway thatch and e-tickets.
Getting sufficient appropriation as fast as probable and subsequently expanding to other countries in Southeast Asia will be crucial. Eventually, Aimazing hopes to work with existent third celebration mobile wallets like Singtel Dash and DBS Paylah, charity them a bigger marketplace over NFC smartphone users.
Getting sufficient appropriation as fast as probable and subsequently expanding to other countries in Southeast Asia will be essential to Aimazing’s success, pronounced Cris Tran, lead consultant for ecommerce and digital mutation during Frost and Sullivan.
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“The payments and fintech marketplace has most potential, though there is also extreme competition,” pronounced Cris. “[In] markets like Indonesia, Vietnam, or a Philippines, a banking invasion is most reduce than in Singapore. These markets are in need of innovative remuneration solutions.”
This essay creatively seemed on Tech in Asia.
Article source: http://tribune.com.pk/story/1204437/startup-will-soon-allow-make-mobile-payments-using-sound/