Extraordinary Endeavors in Turbulent Times: Asian Innovation, Inclusion, and Impact during COVID-19

ASIA BUSINESS COUNCIL HONG KONG UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 79 Yoma Group (Myanmar) Extraordinary Endeavors in Turbulent Times out of 40 million adults. Vendors might set up a page for their shops or even sell products directly from their personal Facebook accounts. For the formal sector, Wave Money has a “Pay with WavePay” Application Programing Interface that allows customers to pay on e-commerce websites using Wave Money, just like how they would use Visa or PayPal. For the informal sector, Wave Money enables peer-to-peer transactions: a vendor would post their mobile phone number, which customers would use for payment. As Jones reflected on the pandemic in December, he said, “When I’m in Yangon these days, I pay for almost everything with WavePay, including my groceries. We have around 360 merchants, online and offline billers, inside the app, so you can pay everything from your Internet bills to e-commerce payments. Currently the only thing I can’t pay for with WavePay in Yangon is my electricity bill, which I pay by cash to my condo provider, but we are trying to digitize that as well. Residents of Mandalay can already pay their electricity bills through WavePay.” Jones continued, “A year ago, if I had contacted an online vendor through Facebook, I probably wouldn’t have assumed that I’d be able to pay through WavePay. Now, my first question is: ‘Can I pay by WavePay?’ And the answer is almost always ‘yes.’ That, to me, is the most significant change to e-commerce during the time of COVID-19.” A Trusted Partner of the Myanmar Government during COVID-19 Importantly, Wave Money also served as a trusted partner of the Myanmar government in the fight against the virus. When the government released its COVID-19 Economic Relief Plan, mobile financial services were documented as an essential service. The government also voiced its intention to push as many government services onto digital platforms like Wave Money, which was specifically named as a provider. This was the first time that the government endorsed the expansion of mobile financial services as an objective. To facilitate execution, Wave Money started working with various government departments and announced before other providers that, for the period of COVID-19, it would make any government disbursements free of charge, and would also cover the cost of the agent’s commission, which is paid when a customer goes to withdraw money. Currently, Wave Money is working on 37 different projects with the government, including a project through which over 230,000 payments were made to pregnant women across nine regions over the course of a month. The company is also working with the Myanmar Economic Bank which disburses payments to “For us, it is really about having a strong engagement with the local community and ensuring that no matter what we do, we can build a better Myanmar for its people. It is not just about building better infrastructure and better buildings, but also about how you help the people,” said Melvyn Pun.