Lazada, Mastercard to empower Southeast Asian e-commerce

Leading online shopping platform Lazada and Mastercard have recently announced a five-year partnership to develop Southeast Asia's e-commerce ecosystem, delivering the best offerings to the region's brands and sellers.

The partnership will enable Mastercard to reach new audiences with Lazada's network of users, including those in developing markets, said the multinational financial services corporation in a statement yesterday.

The duo will develop joint marketing and education campaigns to increase consumer confidence as well as reward schemes to incentivise the use of digital payments.

The partnership will also enable Lazada to access Mastercard's regional and global sponsorship platforms to create unique promotions.

Mastercard's data-driven insights will combine offline and online behaviours to help Lazada understand how to drive greater e-commerce growth within the growing base of internet-savvy, mobile consumers. Lazada will be the anchor merchant for new Mastercard solutions in select markets.

“This partnership allows merchants to leverage Mastercard's data and insights to better reach out to and engage with their consumers,” said Mary Zhou, chief marketing officer of Lazada Group.

“Our partnership with Lazada builds open marketplaces and advances digital democratisation, bringing more to buyers and sellers in the region,” said Rama Sridhar, executive vice president of digital and emerging partnerships and new payment flows for Asia Pacific at Mastercard.