An Open Season- Super-Apps in the age of open banking

Having traveled through Malaysia recently, I made heavy use of Grab. In Singapore, it is not necessary, of course. We travel by public transport and leg it when we want to eat out. But it is a boon to have a single app across countries and just get your card debited with the expense. When you are moving inside smaller cities or between towns, there is always a Grab ride available. If there's a complaint, it has to do with operating hours. For transport at the crack of dawn to a rail station, I had to depend on Uncle Rick(name changed). Maybe Uncle Rick will have his own little app for night-owls and strange travelers. More power to him.

But when it comes to transport utilities, Grab has pretty much sorted things out in this region. Sure, there are challengers and even older players. There's also mainstream public transit and taxis. That's how markets are and should be. Now, applications compete with each other and work on the basis of exclusive experience. As we stand on the edge of the vast ocean that is Open Banking, that might change. After all, one industry may take inspiration from another. It is as much about transport and other essentials as it is about banking.

It is not inconceivable that I might be able to use a single ASEAN app, giving me all the critical service providers I might need on the same screen. I could choose to add providers that I prefer, as well. The payments for various services could be deducted from my accounts or other sources of funds of my choice. In addition, it might be possible for local providers to offer promos and links to their services, based on where I am-and especially if I turn on my location. This would really be the redefinition of the super-app. Why so?

Well, you see, there's a big difference between the way apps are designed today and what an Open app might look like. In the latter case, the app owner does not need to go and build a walled garden with different unique flowering species. In his/her garden, any species can enter and thrive or be brought in and planted by the customer. It would be API-driven(naturally) and the superiority of it's user interface would be key to it's success. To what extent would it be able to differentiate itself from another app which might have exactly the same mix of service providers? This is where creativity, visual appeal, experiences and incentives become primary drivers of app choice. Of course, in a free market, some apps may have special relationships with a few providers. But the baseline of specific generic brand services(Grab, Air Asia, Lazada) being available equally and promptly would become a business imperative for all.

In such a level playing field, the consumer would take centre-stage as an involved party. It should be possible for him/her to call for certain brands to be made available on-screen, on demand. He/she may be able to set up a default list of services and service providers. As we have seen in case of Spotify, your preferences trigger cues sent by the app. Spotify has been outstanding in helping me discover music sub-genres and artists, new and old. It's ability to design for anticipation is quite outstanding. It has been designed, largely and perhaps not deliberately, for this forthcoming Open app age.

However, the basic building block here is a common data framework across countries. It may or may not be akin to PSD2 or elements of it. We are not in the EU, after all. The data framework would need to have a strong component of consumer data protection, ability of use, rights to restrict or prohibit(by the consumer) and standards for very high security. There would need to be data interchange in real-time, across service providers and across different industries. However, should there be an acceptable minimum viable experience of discovery-use-payment, that might make things much easier. There will be precautions regarding content veracity, fraud, bad actors, spam, etc. We will be talking decentralization soon- or a trusted environment. I wouldn't flip a coin yet but that debate is coming. Practically speaking, the Open app paradigm with a robust data framework may start in varying, small ways. Perhaps applications like Grab which work across border would be the earliest initiators.

Note-This was first published in LinkedIn under my account. Some minor changes have been made here.