GrabPay Angbao: From 2k to 1.9 Million Transactions
This is the project I am most proud of; I initiated it and convinced key stakeholders to assign development resources, and together with the team, we completed the design and development in just two weeks. This campaign built my reputation at Grab and had a massive impact on GrabPay’s early growth.
My Role and Responsibilities
Role
Lead Product Designer, GrabPay
Time
Jan. 2018 - Feb. 2018 (1 Month)
As the Lead Product Designer, I initiated the concept for the digital Angbao campaign, recognizing the cultural alignment as a strategic solution to GrabPay's cold start problem.
Design Strategy
Rapid Cross-Functional Ideation (workshop with Designers, PMs, Engineers, BD, MKT,)
User Experience Design: I led the design of the core user flow, focusing on simplicity and delight to encourage habit formation.
Animation Design
Collaboration and Delivery
Senior Product Designer
Bebe Ooi
Design Manager
Yong
Product Manager
Daniel
Front-end
Sushan
Front-end
Vinod
QA
Prathibah
Challenges
Back in 2017, Grab was predominantly known as Southeast Asia's leading ride-hailing app, often compared to Uber. While the long-term vision was to evolve into a "super app" with a full-fledged digital wallet, GrabPay was still in its infancy.
Our initial payment product, GrabPay’s P2P Transfer and Pay-to-Merchant feature, was suffering from a critical 'cold start problem' with very low adoption. We were struggling with awareness and engagement:
Low Awareness
Users strictly perceived Grab for transportation, so our payment features were not even on their radar.
Low Adoption
We had a tiny user base for P2P & P2M, tallying only 6,000 to 7,000 Monthly Active Users (MAU) in Singapore.
Low Transactions
We were only getting a few hundred transactions every day. Without users, the ambitious plan to make GrabPay a digital wallet platform faced a "big failure"
Project Goals and Strategy
The business challenge was clear: we had to acquire users and build habit, fast. Our primary strategic goals for the campaign were:
Build User Habit of P2P Transfer in Singapore
2. Increase the exposure of "Transfer" and onboard more users
3. Boost GrabPay's overall brand awareness
4. Convert Grab Transport Users into GrabPay Users
Ideation: Finding the Cultural Bridge
The idea for the Angbao campaign didn't come from a typical business brief; it arose during an informal lunch conversation with a backend engineer, inspired by the growth of Chinese e-wallets.
I quickly organized an informal workshop with key team members, including PMs, designers, engineers, and marketing. We sketched out several potential growth-hacking ideas:
Idea 1: Pay with GrabPay to win GrabRewards vouchers
Grab User starts a challenge, which is about using more Grab Services and paying with GrabPay, and complete it within a specific duration. As a reward, Grab will issue vouchers for winners. This required budget approval from the Loyalty team.
Idea 2: Complete tasks to collect CNY Zodiac Badges
Win a chance to collect a Zodiac coin by making a payment with GrabPay. For the winners who collects 12 Zodiac coins, they will get a super surprise from Grab, such as a "Flight Ticket to Japan" or "888 SGD Cash"
Idea 3 (The Chosen Concept): Send Chinese New Year Angbao to win a free Angbao from Grab
The key insight was recognizing that giving "Angbao" (red envelopes) is a deeply ingrained cultural tradition for over 70% of Singapore’s population during Chinese New Year. A digital Angbao sent via GrabPay was the perfect analogy for a P2P transfer—it is personal, social, and timely.
Because engineers were in the room, we quickly determined that Idea 3 was the most powerful and feasible within our tight one-month deadline. It allowed us to reuse the existing "Transfer" feature and reskin the UI, leveraging leftover GrabPay budget.
Design Solutions: The Viral Loop
Our design strategy focused on three key moments to establish an exponential viral growth engine:
1. Grab User Attention (The Hook)
Touchpoints:
Users were notified via App Notification (Grab Message) and saw a themed red pocket icon replacing the P2P Transfer entry icon on the homepage.
Delightful Experience:
We fully reskinned the transfer flow with a festive red theme, incorporating custom illustrations and a delightful animation when the Angbao was opened. We heard that users were sending small amounts just to watch the animation, turning the animation into a feature itself.
The Gambling Element:
Working with the Marketing team, we randomized the bonus amounts ($0.88, $8.88, or even a jackpot of $888) to create surprise, leverage the addictive nature of gambling, and generate news in Singapore.
2. Encourage the First Send (Incentivizing Action)
The core mechanic was simple: to claim the next bonus Angbao from Grab, users had to first send one to a friend (minimum $5 was suggested in the initial concept). This incentivized the primary action needed to build the P2P transfer habit.
3. Close the Loop (Sustaining Virality)
This was the most critical step for adoption: we engineered the viral loop.
The receiver's confirmation screen had a prominent "Send an Angbao back" button.
This made it frictionless to turn the new receiver into a new sender, keeping the cycle going and guaranteeing exponential growth
