GG: Razer Pay and Razer Card to be discontinued

In October last year, gaming company Razer decided to give its Razer Pay e-wallet a physical companion with the launch of the Razer Card, a card that literally lit up when you paid with it. 

The Razer Card began with a 1,337 (of course) strong beta, before opening up to a wider audience. I didn’t write about it on The Milelion at the time, but took a closer look in one of my SingSaver columns. 

Try as it might though, Razer Pay never gained any serious traction in a market already inundated with e-wallet solutions (even free masks couldn’t help). Razer Fintech also failed to land a digital banking license when the first crop of four was announced in December 2020. 

And now, less than a year later, Razer’s decided to throw in the towel on both Razer Pay and the Razer Card.

What is was the Razer Card?

The Razer Card was a prepaid Visa that allowed users to spend their RazerPay balance at any Visa-accepting merchant. It came in three flavors:

• Virtual: For online transactions only
• Standard: Physical card, for in-person transactions
• Premium: Physical card, for in-person transactions and illuminated goodness

Of course, all the talk was about the premium card with an LED logo that lit up every time a transaction was made. These were only available to a select group of users who completed a minimum number of transactions, or met a minimum spend, or referred a certain number of people.

On the rewards side, cardmembers earned 1% cashback on all purchases, and 10% cashback on RazerStore (hardware) and Razer Gold (in-game transactions) purchases. There wasn’t any cap on the maximum cashback you could earn, but 1% wasn’t all that impressive, considering how you could earn 1.5-1.6% cashback with other credit cards on the market.

I suppose some might argue that as a prepaid solution with no minimum income requirement, it wasn’t fair to compare the Razer Card to credit cards. Students, for example, might have found it a good alternative to the CIMB AWSM which earned 1% cashback on limited categories, or the Maybank eVibes which earned 1% cashback on everything but with more exclusion categories (the Razer Card didn’t have any). 

What had the potential to be really intriguing was that (for a time at least), Razer Pay top-ups were coding as MCC 5712- Equipment, Furniture & Home Furnishing Stores. I never found out whether this triggered 10X points with the DBS Woman’s World Card or Citi Rewards, but we might have had an Imagine/pre-nerf GrabPay Mastercard situation on our hands. 

It’s a moot point now, I guess. 

What happens to existing Razer Pay balances?

The good news is that Razer Pay is having an orderly dissolution, so those with balances won’t be left in the lurch. 

The last day to top up your Razer Pay balance is 6 August 2021 (edit: apparently top ups have been shut off already), and the last day of use will be 31 August 2021. You can continue to use the in-app withdrawal function up till 30 September 2021, which is capped at two transactions (and S$5,000) per day. After this date, you’ll need to fill up a manual form to get your balance refunded, which requires a wait time of 30 business days.

More FAQs can be found here. 

Conclusion

I never used the Razer Card, but the reports I heard weren’t too positive. There were complaints about bugs, double charging and all manner of inconveniences that sent users right back into the arms of GrabPay or more established solutions. 

So I doubt there’ll be too many tears shed among all but the most hardcore of Razer fans. As it is, there’s way too many mobile payment solutions already, and I’ve yet to see anything that makes me want to abandon credit cards (except perhaps Amaze).

(HT: Sethisfy)