How Marketplaces Are Building Their Own Digital Wallets

Episode 53 of The Platform Economy explores why marketplaces from ride-hailing to e-commerce are building proprietary digital wallets. Lucas and Luna examine the strategic calculus: capturing payment float, reducing transaction costs, and enabling new financial products like instant payouts and buy-now-pay-later. They walk through the case of Grab's GrabPay, which processes over $10 billion in annual payment volume across Southeast Asia, and contrast it with Uber's approach of outsourcing payments to third-party providers. The hosts also discuss the trade-offs of owning the wallet layer—regulatory complexity, fraud risk, and the need for robust KYC—and what it means for the competitive dynamics between marketplace operators and traditional payment networks like Visa and Mastercard. A concrete look at how the wallet is becoming the new infrastructure layer for platform businesses. #DigitalWallets #MarketplaceStrategy #GrabPay #PlatformEconomy #PaymentInfrastructure #Fintech #BusinessAndTechnology #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast #Uber #Grab #BuyNowPayLater #KYC #PaymentFloat #InstantPayouts #Visa #Mastercard #MultiSidedPlatforms Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo