Merchantrade Asia has activated Google Wallet and Samsung Wallet support for its Merchantrade Money Visa Prepaid cardholders, making it the first homegrown non-bank e-money issuer in Malaysia to offer dual native NFC phone-tap payments.
The move digitizes the company’s multi-currency Visa prepaid cards directly into smartphone wallets, giving users a card-not-present experience accepted at over 100 million Visa touchpoints worldwide.
The update is aimed squarely at travelers and everyday local spending alike, letting users leave physical cards tucked away while navigating crowded tourist areas or roaming abroad, where phone taps tend to work more reliably than QR codes. Transactions clear in under a second at transit gates like the London Underground or Singapore’s MRT, as well as in quick convenience store lines, with every tap drawing directly from the user’s pre-converted multi-currency wallet to avoid foreign transaction fee markups.
The NFC capability runs on the Visa Token Service, which swaps sensitive card details for secure tokens so they’re never exposed during a transaction. Samsung Wallet adds Knox-level hardware protection for physical taps and wearables, while Google Wallet offers broader checkout flexibility across mobile apps and web platforms.
Cardholders can link their cards within minutes using in-app provisioning through the Merchantrade Money app, or bind their card directly through the Google Wallet or Samsung Wallet interfaces.
