The Mobile Wallet Landscape in Myanmar
Myanmar is on the cusp of a payment industry transformation. With only 26% of adults having a bank account, compared to the regional average of 49%, the potential for mobile wallets is immense. The country’s currency circulation, at 21% of M2, is notably higher than its peers, indicating a significant opportunity for digital payment solutions. The mobile subscription rate, at an impressive 135% of the population, further underscores the market’s readiness for mobile financial services.
Market Dynamics and Key Players
The Central Bank of Myanmar has granted licenses to a handful of non-banking institutions for mobile financial services, a modest number compared to Vietnam’s 33 licenses. Key players include Wave Money, OK$, M-Pitesan, My Money, and MPT Money. Additionally, commercial banks like CB Bank with CB Pay, MOB Bank in partnership with Ongo, and KBZ Bank with KBZ Pay are expanding their mobile financial offerings. Tellimer Research provides insights into Myanmar’s digital payments market.
Essential Features for a Mobile Wallet in Myanmar
To meet the demands of Myanmar’s growing digital economy, a mobile wallet must include the following features:
Instant Intra-wallet Payments
Users expect immediate transfers between wallets. Delays are unacceptable in a cashless society where the payment experience should rival that of cash transactions.
Payments from and to Bank Accounts
A mobile wallet should enable transfers directly from a user’s bank account and offer the option to receive funds in either their bank account or wallet.
Bill Payments
Mobile wallets must facilitate payments for utilities, mortgages, loans, rent, and tuition, providing a convenient alternative to traditional payment methods.
Physical and Virtual Card Management
Users should be able to store and manage multiple debit/credit card details securely within the wallet, leveraging encryption for enhanced security.
Integration with Contactless Payment Technologies
Adoption of QR codes and NFC technology is essential for enabling secure, contactless in-store payments.
Security
Robust security measures, including two-factor authentication, tokenization, biometric authentication, and end-to-end encryption, are critical for protecting financial transactions.
Easy and Fast Onboarding
A seamless self-registration process is vital to prevent user abandonment during onboarding.
Coupons, Rewards, and Discounts
Offering deals and loyalty rewards can differentiate a mobile wallet in a competitive market.
Bill Splitting
This feature simplifies splitting bills among friends, enhancing user convenience and potentially attracting new customers.
Cash Withdrawals
Despite the trend towards cashlessness, providing options for ATM withdrawals remains important for situations where cash is still king.
Loan Offering and Management
Mobile-friendly loan services can create additional revenue streams, as seen with Paytm’s “Paytm Postpaid” service in India.
Analytical Diagrams and Dashboard
Financial health tracking tools can build user trust and encourage loyalty by offering insights into spending habits.
User Data Backup Facility
Options for secure data backup, such as syncing to iCloud or Dropbox, ensure users never lose track of their finances.
The Untapped Potential of Mobile Wallets in Myanmar
While the mobile wallet market in Myanmar is growing, there are still untapped opportunities. For instance, the use of mobile wallets for remittances remains relatively low despite the high number of Myanmar citizens working abroad. According to the World Bank, remittances to Myanmar amounted to approximately $2.8 billion in 2020, indicating a potential area for mobile wallet expansion (World Bank Data).
Moreover, the integration of mobile wallets with e-commerce platforms is still in its infancy. As online shopping gains popularity in Myanmar, mobile wallets that offer seamless payment solutions for e-commerce transactions could see significant growth.
In conclusion, the mobile wallet market in Myanmar is poised for significant growth, driven by the population’s embrace of mobile technology and the need for convenient financial services. By focusing on user experience, security, and innovative features, mobile wallet providers can tap into this promising market and contribute to Myanmar’s digital financial revolution.
It is a software testing technique where individual components or units of code are tested to validate interactions among different software system modules. In this process, the system components are either tested as a single group or organized iteratively. The main aim of this test is to ensure that all the units of the software work fine after combining.
Why are the different approaches to integration testing?
Below mentioned are different approaches that can be followed to perform this test:
Big bang approach– In this approach, almost all of the units or major units are combined and tested in one-go.
Incremental testing approach – This approach includes testing a minimum of two related modules. The modules are summed up and tested to achieve proper functioning
Top-down approach – This testing approach includes testing of top unit levels first and then moving to lower unit levels
Bottom-up approach–In this approach lower unit levels are tested first and then upper levels are tested
Hybrid approach – It is the combination of the top-down and bottom-up approach
What are the best practices of integration testing?
Perform integration test after unit test – In unit testing the individual units of the software are tested in isolation. After the units are tested, these units are integrated and tested to ensure proper integration, Therefore this test has to be performed after the completion of the unit test
Do not test business logic with integration test – Integration tests take more time as compared to unit tests. Thus it is advisable to use unit test for testing the business logic as unit test checks the basic correctness of code.
Maintain separate test suites – Integration tests should not be run together with unit tests. By keeping test suites separate developers can run unit tests during development and before committing code
Log extensively – Unit tests have very limited scope and tests very small pieces of the application, thus, it is very easy to find the reason if the test fails. But integration test is quite complex and different and its scope may span several software modules, thus it requires exhaustive logging to analyze failure and to discover underlying problems
Integration testing is not the last stop – It is important to not just stop at integration testing, rather go beyond it. As your software will be deployed in a complete production ecosystem that may include virtualization tools, databases, mail servers, load balancers, DNS servers, proxy servers, and more. Thus it is important to test all these components and to ensure that the system accurately simulates the production environment.
Conclusion: Enterprises all across the globe wants to achieve quality software that satisfies their customer to fullest. To achieve this enterprises validate that before their applications are released to the market, they are tested with the best software testing practices. To do so, enterprises adopt integration testing which is an important stage in the software development life cycle. However, there are certain best practices as mentioned in this article that should be kept in mind while performing this test. Leverage integration testing from a next-gen QA and software testing service provider to get high-quality, well-integrated software.
You probably have heard of AR/VR/MR technologies in the past. They are collectively known as XR (extended reality). For most people, these terms are quite abstract and often perceived as the science-fiction in Hollywood movies. But the infiltration of computer-generated objects already exists in our lives, we just don’t realise as a user.
You might have tried to catch Pokemon in recent times or using bitmoji with the Snapchat camera. That is actually AR (Augmented Reality). There are various other groundbreaking use cases of AR in several industries. Many tech companies and engineers around the globe are working to implement these technologies into business operations to bring efficiency.
What is the Extended Reality (XR)?
Extended Reality (XR) is an umbrella term for all the immersive technologies including Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR). All the technologies that extend reality by blending virtual worlds with the real or creating only virtual worlds are included in XR, including those technologies that are still to be developed. A recent surveyrevealed that more than 60% of respondents voted for XR being the mainstream in the upcoming five years. Following are the technologies included currently in the XR technologies:
AR – What is Augmented Reality?
Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that provides a view of the real-world environment with superimposed computer-generated elements (graphics), which ultimately changes real-world perception. In other words, it is the technology that adds layers of digital information to the real environment.
Unlike Virtual Reality (VR), AR doesn’t create a whole artificial surroundings that replace the real world. AR modifies the existing real-world environment with elements like sounds, motions, and graphics.
The term Augmented Reality (AR) was coined back in 1990. The initial commercialisations of AR were in the television and military sector and the rise of smartphones and internet connectivity has introduced a second wave, introducing AR into the common man’s life.
The technology is massively improving the manufacturing sector where products are directly projected via 3D models and fused together in real-time. Also, there are many augmented reality apps that are helping individuals with their health and entertainment.
VR – What is Virtual Reality?
In almost opposition to AR, the virtual reality experience is a fully immersive simulated digital environment, which is experienced by the users through wearable gadgets i.e. VR headsets or head-mounted displays. These VR gadgets provide users with a 360-degree view into the completely artificial world that literally fools the brain into believing that it is the reality.
Many tech companies and VR developers have created artificial environments using VR technology, i.e. swimming underwater, walking on mars, battlefield, and many more. The gaming and entertainment industry are the early adopters of VR technology and many other industries including healthcare, military, education, engineering are pilot testing VR for several use cases.
MR – What is Mixed Reality?
Though this technology is still in its initial stage, Microsoft has tested it with their product HoloLens. It allows users to place a virtual digital object into the real environment (your room) and gives the users an ability to move, spin or interact with that digital object.
Also known as hybrid reality, the mixed reality is where the real and digital world objects co-exist and can interact with each other in real-time. MR technology requires very high processing power as compared to AR and VR. There are many tech companies that are exploring the possibilities where they can put MR to work.
Top 5 AR and VR trends in 2021
The year 2019 was a golden year for technological advancements, where we saw disrupting technologies such asAI & ML, AR & VR, and IoT flourishing. The XR (AR & VR) technologies have specifically shown their potential in the fields of gaming and entertainment.
IDC forecasted that the worldwide spending on XR is expected to grow with 78.5% from 2019 to reach $18.8 billion by the end of this year. The industry experts believe that we’ll witness a whole new load of next-gen XR powered gadgets that will provide users with immersion and realism of a greater extent. However, the industrial usage of XR has outpaced gaming and entertainment.
Industrial Use of AR & VR technologies is outpacing the consumer-oriented implementations
The first interaction most people have with XR technologies is in gaming and entertainment. This may be the reality till now, but it won’t be in future as some research shows that the industry’s focus is shifting towards enterprise XR solution development.
The report by VR Intelligence states that 65% of AR development companies are working on building AR-powered industrial applications whereas only 37% are working on consumer applications and gadgets.
Although the recent popular implementation of XR in consumer applications such as Facebook’s Oculus Rift and Pokemon Go has made the headlines, this industrial trend of XR isn’t surprising as it’s potential to boost productivity and ensure safety was a lucrative proposition for the enterprises.
It has been found in studies that Millennials and later generations check their mobile phones more than 150 times a day and more than half of that time is spent on non-voice activity.Therefore it can be confidently stated that a significant part of their daily lives are influenced by technology. And thus many retail businesses are looking at how to leverage the power of Omnichannel Retail to boost their customer base and revenues.
While the general belief among retailers about going online is to list themselves on retail aggregators like Amazon and eBay, or bring-in sales via social networking marketplaces such as Facebook. Big brands such as Decathlon are enjoying improved customer satisfaction and loyalty by delivering a seamless shopping experience by integrating their online and offline sales process.
But, not all retailers can benefit from a mobile app. Retailers that enjoy more frequent purchases and customer interactions are best placed to leverage the full potential of mobile apps. For example, a luxury jeweller is likely to have less of a need for a mobile app, because their customers make purchases infrequently, and when they do, they probably prefer to come in store. But a retail brand like Target that has many customers who make purchases or interact with the brand several times a week or month, can get the most out of a mobile strategy.
What is Omnichannel Retail?
In general terms, Omnichannel retail is a modern approach of retailing that largely focuses on providing a cohesive buying experience at every customer touchpoint. It is an innovative method of integrated marketing where the retailer focuses on utilising both physical and digital marketing channels to provide customers with a seamless buying experience.
Omnichannel retailing is a modern approach and encompasses optimisation and integration of all the available retail marketing channels. It differs from multichannel marketing where the retailers used to have different strategies for every marketing channel.
The Customer buying decision funnel is more Omnichannel than ever
Despite the hype of online shopping in the past few years, recent reports from the US state that 87 percent of all consumer spending still occurs offline. On paper, offline commerce may still dominate, but digital commerce plays a significant role in the purchase decision making process. When asked about their shopping behaviour prior to the offline purchase, 32 percent of the digital consumers searched for the brand on Amazon, 39 percent visited the brand’s website, 36 percent visited the brand website and 33 percent compared the online and offline prices.
Then, how do the retailers reach these hyper-connected customers? Specifically, in a highly competitive market.
The approach is simple. The retailers can adopt an omnichannel sales strategy to provide their customers with a seamless shopping experience. Regardless of where the final purchase happens, retail brands must have a strategy which includes all of the relevant physical and digital channels involved in the shopping experience. Now, retailers need to figure out how their online presence – including their website and social media presence – influence their customers. This applies even to those customers who buy on marketplaces like Amazon.
Brands have to focus on integrating their overall online presence to influence where and what the customers choose to purchase. Every customer interaction is the opportunity to improve brand awareness. By making the product/service available on all marketing channels, brands make their product/service discoverability easy, which will ultimately result in customers being more likely to buy the product.
Online Marketplaces are complementary channels to Retailers
Amazon’s dominance in the retail landscape is evident with 49 percent of the online spend in the US occurring on Amazon. In fact, in 2018, almost 83 percent of the US consumers have made a purchase on Amazon. When you are specifically looking at the digital-first Millennial generation within the US, the percentage hikes to 90 percent. It proves that Amazon has become an integral part of nearly every customer’s shopping journey.
Convenience is the number 1 reason why consumers buy from Amazon.
Despite capturing a huge market share, the growth of this giant online marketplace doesn’t significantly hamper the retailers; In fact, it brings a pool of opportunities. Merchants who consider Amazon and other marketplaces as another sales channel are thriving. According to Amazon’s Small business impact Report, third-party sellers accounted for more than half of the units sold from June 2019 to May 2020.
You might not know but consumers consider Amazon as a destination to find new products for their needs. In fact, 30 percent of the customers agree that they first saw the brand on Amazon before they bought the product from the brand’s website. Many brands remiss this obvious connection between these two sales channels. And in turn, they fail to survive in the cutthroat competitive environment.