Inventor believes Pink Dollar app will be game-changer

HONG KONG (AFP) - Mr Paul Ramscar believes his Pink Dollar "app" is a lot more than just another snippet of smartphone software: it is a social game-changer that will help end discrimination against gays and lesbians.

The smartphone application aims to put members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in touch with businesses deemed friendly to sexual minorities in socially conservative Hong Kong.

"It's not just an app, there is a bigger cause here," said the former investment banker who hails from Britain and moved to Hong Kong in 2007.

Mr Ramscar believes the software - soon to be launched on Apple iPhones and eventually Android devices - will break down cultural barriers in a city where homosexuality was decriminalised only two decades ago.