Singapore keen to catch up with China on digital payments

Just last week, I had an interesting conversation over dinner with a couple of my Lean In Singapore Women In Tech team members on the developments made in payments in the respective countries we hail from (one is from Australia, another from China, I'm from India).

We spoke of the massive leaps made in developing markets such as China, India and parts of Africa that have left developed countries far behind in how payments get done. My friend from China spoke about the exact thing that Singapore's PM Lee Hsien Loong stated in his National Day Rally speech on Sunday - that Chinese tourists would consider Singapore backward for still doing things the old way!

China has seen an astounding spread with cashless payments. To the extent that China has now reached a stage where the government has to remind merchants and payment providers that cash is still a valid payment option! 

#mobilepayment #cashlesspayment #China #India #Singapore #payments #Alipay

When stress can be fatal - Article for SHB Social Foundation

I found earlier this week that a former colleague, a wonderful kind, gentle and knowledgeable human being, passed away last week. Of a heart attack.

Over the past week, after I shared a post on this on Facebook, I received a few messages from people sharing that they too had themselves suffered a heart attack from severe stress, or knew someone up-close who had gone through this.

I remember that colleague and I talking last year when one of his other team members had died suddenly of a heart attack. He had known that guy well for years and was deeply saddened…mentioned that he had been going through a lot of stress recently…wondering if that had brought on his untimely demise?

The kind of stress that builds up, brings on a heart attack, a fatal one…?

I don’t know what was the cause of his death. But then when I look around, stress is palpable with so many of us. All those sources of what causes stress aren’t going to go away suddenly. But we all need to know that stress needn’t be here to take shelter in our lives.

Let’s hope each of us can do our bit to chisel it away bit by bit – meditate, exercise, yoga, dance, sing, meet, laugh, talk, cry…Help ourselves, and help those around us.

We also need more of us actively reaching out to others for help – be they our family, friends, others in our network or our neighbourhood. Somehow, stress tends to get pushed under the carpet – thinking this shall pass. But how many of us are conscious that it has built up to a stage where it has already caused tremendous harm to us!

I can’t be thankful enough that organizations such as SHB have been tackling this through its Listening Post initiative – a talking space, that recognizes that the simple act of talking, and having someone to listen to you, can be therapeutic. May the tribe grow, and may all of us dealing with stress avail of these services wherever they may be available.

This article was first published on SHB Social Foundation

With the extensive coverage that WeChat Pay and Alipay have in China, mobile based payments are already intrinsic to payments in the domestic market. And over the past few years, Alipay's international reach is only growing. The Alipay-Yelp coverage extends it further.

I believe that's the true beauty of payments - woven so well into our lifestyles, we don't even know it's there!

Check this: http://www.scmp.com/tech/enterprises/article/2107113/alipay-and-yelp-join-forces-drive-local-experiences-chinese