FOMO Pay: Powers moves to cashless societies with Google Cloud

About FOMO Pay

FOMO Pay provides a digital payment processing platform that allows merchants and financial institutions in emerging markets in Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America to accept a full suite of mobile payments. FOMO Pay partners include NETS Pay, VISA QR, Grab Pay, Razer Pay, Singtel Dash, and WeChat Pay, while the business is a founding member of the Singapore Monetary Authority's SGQR taskforce that is jointly developing a common QR Code standard for the country. Since 2015, more than 10,000 customers, including Changi Airport, Singapore Airlines, and Marina Bay Sands have trusted FOMO Pay to provide digital payment solutions.

Industries: Financial Services & Insurance
Location: Singapore

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With Google Cloud, FOMO Pay can provide merchants with solutions that support a range of new mobile payment services, positioning it for growth as societies become cashless.

Google Cloud results

  • Supports international expansion
  • Achieves over 99.99% uptime to meet business requirements
  • Processes over 3 million transactions per month

Positions business to reap new revenues and customers as societies become cashless

Many countries are on track to implement cashless societies – and FOMO Pay, is in the vanguard of change. Founded in 2015 and based in Singapore, FOMO Pay is a digital payment processing platform that enables enterprises and merchants to accept a full suite of digital payment solutions such as Visa QR, WeChat Pay, and Alipay.

FOMO Pay provides integrated solutions that support in-store cashless payment processing and enable online stores to accept credit card and mobile payments. The company also provides a platform for enterprises that support a wide range of digital payment products.

According to Zack Yang Zhan, Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder, FOMO Pay is well positioned to grow in markets where mobile payment solutions, rather than traditional credit cards, are beginning to dominate cashless transactions. "In these markets, merchants need to be able to accept mobile payments, which is where we come in," he says.

"The security policies and features of Google Cloud, such as the automatic encryption of data, intrusion detection system, and PCI-DSS compliance made it a perfect fit for our business."

Zack Yang Zhan, Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder, FOMO Pay

Merchants can reap considerable benefits from the adoption of mobile payments. For example, as WeChat Pay and other Chinese mobile wallets are increasingly popular in China, tourists from the country are more likely to patronize overseas merchants that can support their preferred payment methods.

Transitioning to efficient payments

FOMO Pay is not simply helping businesses stay ahead of the curve on digital payments, but also actively enabling Singapore's transition to more efficient payment systems.

The organization is part of the Singapore Quick Response Code (SGQR) taskforce established by Singapore's central bank and financial regulatory authority, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). The taskforce seeks to develop a common Quick Response (QR) Code standard for Singapore to simplify payments for consumers and merchants.

Other countries are taking significant steps toward becoming cashless, opening global opportunities for FOMO Pay. Central banks in Indonesia and Malaysia are promoting the adoption of QR Codes to encourage the use of cashless payments, while projects are also underway in the Middle East. In addition, the Trade Ministry of Japan has unveiled a cashless vision that aimed to increase cashless payments from 20 to 40 percent of all payments by 2025.

"We're storing several terabytes of data in Cloud Storage that we can comfortably increase without worrying about cost or capacity limits."

Zack Yang Zhan, Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder, FOMO Pay

Starts with trial

FOMO Pay started initial operations with a trial on an incumbent cloud service provider. The business required a stable infrastructure as even minor outages would compromise its ability to process payment transactions. "We had an expectation of more than 99.99 percent availability and, unfortunately, we experienced downtime with our previous provider," says Yang. The business looked at other cloud providers and decided that Google Cloud fulfilled its requirements of reliability, scalability, and developer-friendliness.

FOMO Pay further evaluated the ability of Google Cloud to meet security and regulatory requirements applicable to the storage and processing of sensitive payment and customer data. FOMO Pay must comply with Singapore's Personal Data Protection Act and global information security standards set through the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). "The security policies and features of Google Cloud, such as the automatic encryption of data, intrusion detection system, and PCI-DSS compliance made it a perfect fit for our business," says Yang.

Google Cloud also provided data analytics, ML, and AI services that could deliver actionable analysis and insights from data, helping FOMO Pay better meet customer expectations. Lastly, Google Cloud would enable FOMO Pay to implement a low-cost backup regime.

Completes migration using internal resources

FOMO Pay then completed the migration to Google Cloud using internal resources. "We started with our core workloads and stabilized these in the new infrastructure," says Yang. "We then progressively moved our remaining workloads across in a smooth process." The business' Google Cloud architecture incorporates Compute Engine virtual machine instances running the app used to process payment transactions and Cloud Storage storing payment data.

"With Google Cloud, we can help power the cashless revolution taking place globally."

Zack Yang Zhan, Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder, FOMO Pay

With its workloads running in Google Cloud, FOMO Pay can now meet its business requirement of over 99.99 percent uptime. The stability and reliability of its service has provided assurance to customers, including Marina Bay Sands and Changi Airport Group in Singapore.

The business is processing more than three million transactions per month and can support up to five transactions per second with no disruption to service. Each transaction takes three to five seconds to complete, supported by sub-second app response times – well within business requirements. "Furthermore, we're storing several terabytes of data in Cloud Storage that we can comfortably increase without worrying about cost or capacity limits," says Yang.

Expansion looms

Having built a strong business foundation with Google Cloud that is able to meet regulatory requirements for onshore storage and processing of customer data, FOMO Pay is now looking to expand its business to countries such as Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia. "We're now planning to open up our product to the banks to support their digital banking services and help them run their businesses through the cloud," says Yang. "Google Cloud is the best choice for our core business as it supports all our key functions."

"With Google Cloud, we can help power the cashless revolution taking place globally," adds Yang.

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About FOMO Pay

FOMO Pay provides a digital payment processing platform that allows merchants and financial institutions in emerging markets in Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America to accept a full suite of mobile payments. FOMO Pay partners include NETS Pay, VISA QR, Grab Pay, Razer Pay, Singtel Dash, and WeChat Pay, while the business is a founding member of the Singapore Monetary Authority's SGQR taskforce that is jointly developing a common QR Code standard for the country. Since 2015, more than 10,000 customers, including Changi Airport, Singapore Airlines, and Marina Bay Sands have trusted FOMO Pay to provide digital payment solutions.

Industries: Financial Services & Insurance
Location: Singapore