In this edition of Weekly Focus APAC: Tmall Offers Global Brands Marketing Support with Cold Chain Service; Mobile-Only Thai Bank Activates Biometrics for New Accounts; Grab Unveils Numberless Payment Card; Flipkart Buys Stake in Logistics Platform; Walmart & Flipkart Co-Invest in Ninjacart; and Indonesia E-Commerce Site Gets New Chief.

Tmall Offers Global Brands Marketing Support with Cold Chain Service

Alibaba's international online marketplace Tmall Global is providing its cold chain service to global brands and offering marketing support to help them engage consumers, so they can drive sales of these fresh goods.

The logistics service encompassed shipping for temperature-sensitive products such as foods and pharmaceuticals. It would help resolve the challenge of having to work with multiple logistics partners to fulfil an order, carrying fresh items to consumers in China, said Tmall. The e-commerce operator said temperatures were controlled across the various points, including warehousing, processing, and packaging, so the quality and freshness of the products could be ensured.

Pointing to growing consumer demand for quality fresh food, Tmall's head of food Sonic Gao said: "They want fresher, healthier food... This makes it even more important to have robust cold-chain infrastructure to bring more of these products to consumers on our platform."

The Chinese tech giant added that it offered sales and marketing support to help global brands directly engage consumers and better drive sales of their fresh goods. It recently ran a co-marketing campaign with new movie Frozen II to promote the debut of cold-chain products on the e-commerce marketplace.

Mobile-Only Asean Bank Activates Biometrics for New Accounts

TMRW by UOB has enabled fingerprint and facial biometrics to make it quicker and more secured for customers to open their accounts with the digital bank.

Customers would be able to use the biometric feature at all 350 authentication kiosks located across Greater Bangkok, said TMRW, which is operated by Singapore bank United Overseas Bank (UOB).

UOB Thai's head of retail digital Natee Srirussamee said feedback from its customers had allowed the bank to enhance its services. For example, "a small percentage of customers" found the experience of using fingerprint biometrics to authenticate their account at TMRW kiosks "not seamless enough". This prompted the bank to add facial recognition technology to "ensure a smoother account opening process" for all its customers.

It also conducted surveys involving more than 4,000 customers and used insights from these studies to improve its app. For instance, the user interface would be updated with features customised for the Thai digital generation, such as the streamlining of information customers received on their home page and reducing of steps required to pay their bills.

Grab Unveils Numberless Payment Card

The ride-sharing operator has introduced a numberless payment card that it says offers customers stronger security, access to its rewards ecosystem, and integration with Grab's various payment options.

It said the new card was the result of its existing partnership with Mastercard and would "vastly" expand Grab's offline and online merchant ecosystem, which encompassed almost 53 million merchants globally that would accept Mastercard cards.

The new GrabPay Card made its debut in Singapore this week and was expected to be available in the Philippines next quarter. Consumers in other Southeast Asian markets would have access to the card by the first half of 2020.

The GrabPay Card bears no number on the front and back, which Grab said would discourage theft of personal and financial data. As an extension of GrabPay wallet, the card's details are stored within the Grab app. It also features an in-app lock card function that is PIN-protected.

Grab customers can sign up for the new card after completing a customer verification process within the Grab app. Upon their verification, consumers would be able to use their digital GrabPay card, which would be linked to their GrabPay balance in their wallet.

Flipkart Buys Stake in Logistics Platform

The Indian e-commerce operator has purchased a minority stake in Indian logistics platform, Shadowfax, with which it already has an existing partnership.

The investment was part of the latter's Series D funding round, which raised US$60m (£45.58m) from investors such as Eight Roads Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, and NGP Capital.

Founded in 2015, Shadowfax currently handles 10 million shipments a month for companies across various e-commerce segments including grocery, electronics, and fashion. It has more than 100,000 registered delivery partners on its platform.

Flipkart said its investment aimed to tapped opportunities in grocery and fresh produce. Its CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy said: "We are focused on redefining customer experience, and hyperlocal is a key element to enable this transformation. We have seen strong synergies with Shadowfax through our existing engagement with them and their investments in tech-enabled innovations will help us significantly reduce delivery time and provide superior customer experiences across product categories."

Walmart & Flipkart Co-Invest in Ninjacart

Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart has partnered Walmart to jointly invest in Ninjacart, an Indian startup that operates a digital supply chain of more than 200 collection centres and 1,200 warehouses in the country.

It moves more than 1,400 tonnes of fresh produce each day.

Together with Walmart and Flipkart, the three companies were looking to facilitate better access to quality fresh produce for retailers and consumers in India as well as create business opportunities for local farmers.

Jointly investing in Ninjacart also would boost direct sourcing of fresh produce for Walmart India's Best Price B2B cash-and-carry stores and Flipkart's online grocery business, Supermart.

In addition, the partnership would expand Ninjacart's customer base, augment its reach to new cities, and provide the Indian startup access to global best practices to improve the efficiencies of India's local fresh produce ecosystem.

Ninjacart has more than 44,000 farmer suppliers as well as 60,000 kirana or small business stores and restaurants across seven Indian cities.

Indonesia E-Commerce Site Gets New Chief

Indonesian e-commerce operator Bukalapak says its chief executive and co-founder Achmad Zaky will be stepping down next month and replaced by financier Rachmat Kaimuddin.

Kaimuddin was previously director of finance and planning for Bank Bukopin.

Zaky would remain as an advisor as well as establish a foundation, said Bukalapak. The company's other co-founders Fajrin Rasyid and Nugroho Herucahyono would remain as president and CTO, respectively.