APEX to launch Mobile Payment Service in Myanmar

Myanmar Apex Bank launched a mobile banking service on the basic text message yesterday that can be used to recharge services, bills and other payments.

MAB mobile banking, as the product is known, is compatible with all SIM cards in both smartphones and keyboard phones, said the general manager of U Win Khaing Min bank.

“Such transfers are available at any time. Our services are no longer limited to the time the banks.”
Currently, the bank has 500 agents throughout the country and plans to expand its network to 10,000 within two or three years, he said.

Anyone with an account on the MAB can use the service, allowing them to climb, pay bills, send payments to others, with or without an account, transfer money, withdraw money and machinery NAB ATM without a card.
For example, a portable Bank MAB user could send a code by text message to a friend, who could then use the code to withdraw money from an ATM. The system is safe, according to authorities, and requires two security numbers – an identification and access code number.

“We are working to expand our network of agents in a short time, and it is planned to increase the number of people with access to banking services because it is still less than 20pc of the population,” said U Win Min Khaing, adding that all agents are considered by the MAB in line with the policy of the central bank.

MAB currently has agreements with telecom operators, digital marketing agency, travel and tour companies, restaurants, movie tickets, departments to pay the bills, shopping centers and pay-TV channels. It will expand its network based on customer demand, he said.

Read Also : Pizza Hut Aim to open 20 restaurants in Myanmar in the next 5 years

Pizza Hut Aim to open 20 restaurants in Myanmar in the next 5 years

Investors behind Pizza Hut in Myanmar say they plan to open 20 restaurants in Yangon and around the country over the next five years. Hot on the heels of the opening of its first restaurant in Yangon, CM Jardine Restaurant Group opened its second outlet in early 2016, said Vipul Chawla, CEO of Pizza Hut, Yum Brands Asia.

Pizza Hut is a subsidiary of Yum Brands, which also owns KFC and other international brands like Taco Bell.

“Pizza Hut has 25 restaurants for every million people in the United States. In Asia, there are 11 restaurants per million people. Myanmar has huge potential with a population of over 50 million dollars,” said Mr. Chawla the official launch of pizza Hut in Myanmar.

“We will expand from 15 to 20 restaurants over the next five years,” he said, adding that favorable conditions will lead to a faster expansion.

CM Jardine Restaurant Group is a joint venture between Jardine Restaurant Group Myanmar and City Mart Holding, owner of the Pizza Hut franchise in Myanmar.

Jardine Restaurant Group operates more than 680 Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants across Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao.

Daw Win Win Tint, CEO of City Mart said he is excited to “bring the Pizza Hut experience the people of Myanmar”.

The first restaurant was a mix of local and international staff, but the proportion of local employees will grow over time, said Henry Yip, CEO of Jardine Restaurant Group.

“Ninety-seven percent of our workforce is local and most of our ingredients are locally sourced,” he said. “We also invest heavily in training and professional development to ensure global best practices.”

While the flavor of the food will be recognizable to international guests, Pizza Hut uses a test kitchen to study the preferences of Myanmar, said Simon Arnold, CEO of Pizza Hut Myanmar.

“We studied the favorite flavors local customers and adapt our recipes accordingly,” he said. costs K11,000 a normal pizza and pasta is K4000.

The company declined to provide figures on the value of the investment.

While Jardine Restaurant Group also represents KFC in other parts of Asia, it has failed to obtain the franchise in Myanmar.

KFC in association with Serge Pun-chaired Yoma strategic holdings.

Yum is based in Kentucky and has more than 41,000 restaurants in more than 125 countries and territories. It was formed as a spin-off from PepsiCo in 1997 and a turnover of more than $ 13 billion now.

Also Read : Japanese Food House Gekko in Yangon

Is Myanmar still need to develop in Digital Marketing

Is Myanmar ready for Digital Marketing?

Digital Marketing, Social media marketing, Internet marketing are the new marketing buzz words of the developed countries around the world. Now, Myanmar is catching up (slowly & steadily) in this online arena after visit from Google’s Eric Schmidt and Facebook making its advertising service available in Myanmar. But are we ready for this upcoming industry with the high exponential growth?

Out of 55 million populations in Myanmar, the “Guesstimation” of population with internet access is less than 4%. However, starting from 2012, there have been major changes in Myanmar telecommunication and there was strong surge in mobile phone subscription which usually come with internet service. Even though it is as slow as turtle (the infamous Burmese metaphor for internet speed), more people are accessing internet in Myanmar.

Digital Culture

For a country that survived on 52 kbps dial-up connection (for those who don’t know what 52 kbps dial-up connection is – it is the internet connection that make dubstep like noise when you connect and very very slow), the general population is not digitally sophisticated. Using search engines to search information is uncommon. Instead people use Facebook, the most popular webpage in Myanmar, to search information through Facebook Graph Search.

From an exploratory qualitative research done by MMRD in 2013, it is gathered that male tend to use internet more than female. This trend is more obvious in older generations. Reading news, catching up with friends and families are the activities they do on internet. Independent news & informative pages are the most popular pages among young & old, despite most of the alleged news page on Facebook are not actually credible and factual based. This may driven by the tight restrictions put by Government media censorship which is only loosened a year ago. With those restrictions, digital media played a crucial role in country’s reformation in recent years when journalists bypass censorship using social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

Digital Arenas

As said above, Facebook is the most popular page and roughly 22% of the the population with internet access use Facebook in Myanmar, that is roughly 1 million users. Local blogs such as Thit Htoo Lwin have high visitations and regarded as reliable sources. Twitter and LinkedIn, however, is still at its budding stage and only used by foreigners in Myanmar and professional locals. Other social media platforms; Pinterest and Google+ are largely unrecognized by Myanmar netizens.

Digital Demographic

Alike any other country in the world, the demographic segment with highest usage rate is young adults, 20-30 years old. This segment represent over 50% of Facebook users and highly active in sharing, commenting and posting. Older demographics, middle aged (31-59) less active on Facebook,  they read news and updated posts from relatives & friends. In this older segment, the online demographics skewed towards male population as aforementioned.

Related : Telecom Firm Ooredoo Raise $300 Million from ADB and IFC to Expand Mobile Market

Digital Marketing

As only 1% of population has access to internet, it is no brainer that digital marketing is not the best way to reach mass population. On the other hand, the upper socioeconomic class with higher spending power is readily accessible through internet and some companies already deployed their digital marketing activities. However, the digital marketing in Myanmar is not at satisfactory stage yet. This is due to both lack of general technical knowledge and software infrastructure. Most of the websites do not track their analytics data. Google Adwords is not yet available in the country. Digital marketing is not understood by majority of the businesses and decision makers yet.

On the other hand, Facebook advertising has surged in the past year and several companies and celebrities are started branding activities on sponsored stories and Facebook advertising.  in 2013, it has shown that younger population are willing to click on those advertising if it is concern or related to their activities. Advertising on other webpages such as Thit Htoo Lwin blogs, or Myanmar Times are usually disregarded. Moreover, display advertisement on search engines and other Google services (such as Gmail) usually went unnoticed. This indicates that the only viable form of digital advertising is only through Facebook at this stage, which limits the marketing activities.

Digital Future

At this stage, we can see Myanmar population is going towards what digital marketers call “Content marketing”. Basically content marketing is creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target, in other words, product or service promotion disguised as news or entertainment content, this include photo posts on Facebook and blog posts.

What is going to happen from here? Obviously, the internet usage is going to rocket after introduction of 3G/4G by international telecommunication service providers.  But on the other hand, the majority of the population (and also the businesses) need to be digitally educated before we can reach to the stage where we can see results from digital marketing. I, among other digital marketers, am waiting to see more quality webpages, mobile marketing activities and big data tracking.

( This article was written by Ko YanJamesAung in his personal blog. )

Little Vietnamese Restaurant in Yangon

You could be forgiven for walking right past Cyclo Vietnamese restaurant in Yangon. If it was not for my friendly taxi driver, I would have gone directly from outside unpretentious. At 11 am Wednesday lunchtime rush had not yet begun. My dining partner and I were greeted with friendly smiles and a quick run to turn on the fans.

First out of the kitchen, a few minutes after our order was the flower of banana chicken salad, which took us both by surprise. It ‘was very refreshing, tasty with a balance of mint and citrus fruit. The shredded chicken was tender and the dish was sprayed in peanuts.

I’d only been happy with the salad, but shortly after a chicken stir fried with lemongrass came to the table. The salad has set a high standard, and the second course left me a bit ‘disappointed. The chicken was cut more or less, as is typical in this region, and some boning should be done to minimize the risk of losing teeth. You probably will not get away with this part of New Zealand, where they are, but still, lemongrass dressing was zingy and well-cooked chicken.

Also on the plate, a bowl of beef pho was served as it should be, with bean sprouts, chilli, lime and swimming in a savory broth. Some say that the key to an authentic pho is in the broth and spices, and praise Cyclo to achieve it.
That said, the pho certainly did raise the temperature of my body. This is the hot to mid-March the air conditioning would be a welcome addition to the hot space, in particular for the kiwi. The drinks menu, while not extensive, covered all the bases. Two arrived cold Vietnamese coffee, one with condensed milk, one without. Both he verged too sweet, but full of a nasty blow caffeine buzz that leaves us even our food.

Also Read : Indonesia Toba in Yangon

Among the dishes, I went back to the salad of banana flowers, for practical reasons, to clean my palette and reduce heat. But really, I could not get enough of it, that was shared by my dining companion sensation. Spring rolls Tofu easily took the title of my second favorite dish, and may be sprayed with a peanut sauce. pork and shrimp spring rolls are also the only K500’s menu.

Salt chilli accompanied our small fruit plate, composed of mandarin, pineapple, watermelon and apple. I tried to be adventurous and challenge my spice-ometer, but the mixture of salt just was not for me. It took an hour to his mouth to regain a sense of normalcy.

What was missing in Cyclo interior design – a handful of Vietnamese scenes in small paintings on the walls – it is made up of friendly service and simple food done well. Of about 12, he started the buzz, and the opaque space has been brought to life. I’m sure it’s the same for dinner. These guys are not trying to be something they are not. If the authenticity and traditional Vietnamese food is what you are looking for, I would start here.

Indonesia Toba in Yangon

In particular, this Wednesday evening, Toba was the scene of an increasingly rare in the modern district Yaw Min Gyi Yangon phenomenon of going to a restaurant and realize that you’re the only Western there. It was not due to lack of customers, both; the tight space reminiscent of a train car was almost full, which is always a good sign.

The restaurant probably 24 hours, which is named after the largest volcanic lake in the world, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, opened without fanfare at the end of 2014. Fortunately, the food is much more Indonesian restaurant 24/7 , and although it is certainly a good option late at night, reports are that the Toba, restaurants in Yangon will close its doors sporadically in these key moments when the border between late night and early morning blur.

The menu offers customers reason to wait. It is a thick binder with rolled pages and Indonesia and Indochina (with lots of options for vegetarians) page, and although prices are not shown, ranging from 1.700 to 4.900 kyat (about US $ 2 to US $ 5) plate. The restaurant does not sell beer or alcohol, but the waiters are ready to pop in the shop nearby to buy what they want for just 100 kyat payment.

As for decoration, the kindest thing that can be said of leatherette booths and tables do not match Toba is symbolic that the efforts in creating an environment are appealing. The ground floor walls were painted with giant murals if rudimentary inspired by landscapes of Indonesia, and it is remarkable how closely the selected tone green like green tempera used by children of Fingerpaint schools. The draw for a place like Toba, however, is not on your furniture or mats, but strictly in the food.

Start the meal with Gado Gado, a generous portion of steamed mixed vegetables seasoned with a good dose of peanut sauce and Krupuk, which are essentially delicious fried “crispy bits”. The dish is sweet and peanuts with a perfect bottom spicy, and is a good way to introduce your taste buds to the different range of flavors that food is about to reveal. Accompany this with one of the many varieties of nasi goreng on the menu, since the varieties of Toba fried rice are some of the less greasy that I found in the city.

Highlights include SAPI rendang, a coconut milk, lemongrass beef soup is surprisingly tender and tasty. With pan-size portions, be sure to ask more than one. While the udung sambal had the right touch of shrimp paste and tamarind, there was something in the shrimp did not taste fresh, which is worrying in view of the fact that our photographer was denied access to the kitchen, because it was not “tidy”. the perkedel kentang (potato dumplings) were tasty if not memorable, and the same way, the chicken skewers were well seasoned with turmeric and a pinch of curry, although in turn were a little ‘dry.

overall the food was hearty, satisfying and inexpensive, that seems to be exactly what is going on in Toba. So far Indonesian, Toba is certainly worthy of note among the Rangoon options, but if you are in Jakarta or in some lost street Bandung, many possibilities are not present. The risk with such an extensive menu in a restaurant that is relatively small is that the kitchen makes some of the most popular dishes, and often very good, but then an error occurs in others. Yet, I return to Toba, if only in the hope of proving his elusive tempeh, which all seem to hear good things about, but only a lucky few have ever had the privilege to try it.

Also Read : Korea increase their investment in Myanmar