FOMO Pay review: What is FOMO Pay, how does it work, & is it safe?

Been diligently following financial news even on your annual leave week? You would have read that this new “FOMO Pay” sprouted out of nowhere and joined the DBS Digital Exchange, allowing businesses to accept cryptocurrency payments in Singapore.

Wait a minute. That’s TMI in one sentence. Can un-finance please?

Who owns FOMO Pay?

FOMO Pay is actually not new. FOMO Pay was founded in 2015 by Louis Liu and Zack Yang, a management associate from Visa and a Software Developer for BMW’s Future Mobility Lab (he worked on the i3 and i8) respectively before they hopped on board FOMO Pay together.

There are several businesses in Singapore that are already using FOMO Pay, such as StarHub, Jumbo, Chanel, Marina Bay Sands, Club21, and SPH.

How does FOMO Pay work?

Basically, FOMO Pay is a one-stop digital payment service provider that businesses can work with or subscribe to. When businesses subscribe to FOMO Pay’s services, FOMO Pay will help them to streamline to multiple modes of digital payments that are available in the market into a single wallet.

Think of all that money coming in from Visa, MasterCard, NETS, QR codes, PayNow, PayLah, physical POS system, mobile POS system etc. – it can get confusing.

On top of that, if you’re a small bakery business owner (for example) who’s been getting tourists walking in asking for WeChat pay, FOMO Pay offers your bakes-loving customers the option to pay via WeChat Pay and Baidu Wallet.

FOMO Pay cryptocurrency

And now, according to the news, FOMO Pay will also be offering cryptocurrency in their payment lineup. That means, if your small bakery business is already hooked up to FOMO Pay’s digital payment services, you will also have the option to have your customers pay you in… cryptocurrencies.

How will that work? According to FOMO Pay, they intend to tap on the DBS Digital Exchange’s “institutional grade digital custodian and exchange services supported by DBS Bank to enable its merchants accept payments in crypto and keep their funds safe”.

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Wouldn’t cryptocurrencies be a terrible payment method for a $3.50 muffin since crypto price are always volatile?

Well, FOMO Pay has thought of that too. So, in an interview with VulcanPost, founder and CEO Louis Liu clarified that the fiat amount ($3.50 for e.g.) will be converted into a crypto of choice. Then, the customer will pay in crypto. This crypto amount will be converted back to fiat ($3.50) and forwarded to your bakery’s wallet.

So, the question lies in – when will this crypto-to-fiat conversion take place? Will FOMO Pay be absorbing all the gains and losses if this particular crypto increases/dips in price within the few minutes or seconds a payment takes to be cleared?

If you’re a business owner, do consider the platform fees, transaction fees, conversion fees, and crypto gas fees FOMO Pay will impose on its businesses – and will these fees make sense for a small bakery?

Do I need to download the FOMO Pay app?

No, if you’re just a regular Singaporean buying soya milk and Old Chang Kee, you don’t need to download the FOMO Pay app to pay for your nugget sticks. You can just pay with your usual PayWave or NETS.

The FOMO Pay app you’ll find on the app stores is meant for businesses and merchants who have signed up for the FOMO Pay services.

Before the new web 3.0 world and crypto payments takeover the world that we currently live in, considering getting started buying cryptocurrencies. Not sure how and where to start? Check out the best crypto exchanges here in Singapore.

This article was first published in MoneySmart.