Turning smartphones into secure, all-in-one payment terminals

Grab Product Team

. April 8, 2026 . Regional

Many of the merchants on our Grab platform also serve customers in-store. We noticed that the majority of micro, small, and medium (MSME) vendors struggle to offer convenient card and other cashless payment options to their customers. That’s because traditional card terminals come with significant rental fees and long setup times.

Making cashless accessible to everyone

We believe that accepting a payment should be seamless and cost-effective. With today’s digital payment systems, that’s possible.

That’s why we’ve transformed the GrabMerchant mobile app into a complete, hardware-free payment hub. So if a customer wants to tap their credit card, the only tool the merchant needs is the smartphone already in their pockets.

This isn’t just about cards, though. We know that Southeast Asia is a mosaic of different payment preferences. Our unified system naturally handles everything from local QR schemes like PayNow and InstaPay to international options like Alipay+ and WeChat Pay. For the merchant, it means being able to serve most customers in their preferred way to pay.

One app, one view

The true magic happens behind the scenes. In the past, business owners had to juggle different apps to track their Grab deliveries versus their in-store walk-ins. This created a fragmented view of their business that made bookkeeping a chore.

By bringing in-store payments directly into the GrabMerchant ecosystem, we’ve created a single source of truth. Every sale—whether it’s a delivery order or a “Tap to Pay” coffee at the counter—is unified in one reporting view. Better yet, with next-day settlement, merchants rest assured that revenue hits their accounts even before they open their doors the next morning.

This simplicity extends to the customer experience as well. As part of Grab’s loyalty programme that’s available to merchants and their customers, every Tap to Pay settlement can automatically update a digital stamp card. It’s a win-win: customers get rewarded for their loyalty without carrying a physical card, and merchants build a community of repeat fans with zero extra effort.

Security you can trust

While the experience is simple, the technology is world-class. We’ve built these features to meet the highest global bank-grade security standards, ensuring that every tap or scan transaction on a mobile phone is just as safe as one on a traditional terminal. This means merchants can focus on serving their customers with the peace of mind that their transactions are protected.

Looking ahead

These features are already live and making an impact in the Philippines and Singapore. They are coming to Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand by end of the year, and Vietnam in 2027.

As we expand, we are continuing to find new ways to make the GrabMerchant app not just a sales tool, but a full-stack operating system for the modern entrepreneur.

GrabX