Daily news

Pagos Raises $10 Million to Build Payment Structure

Pagos Raises $10 Million to Build Payment Structure
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Funding

Pagos, a startup that provides intelligent payment infrastructure for commerce, is placing its stakes in the payment space today. The newly-minted company landed $10 million in a round led by Underscore VC and Point72 Ventures that also included participation from Amit Jhawar, Bill Ready, Billy Chen, and Rich LaBarca.

Pagos will use the funds to build out its team with more engineers.

Company founders Klas Bäck, Albert Drouart, and Daniel Blomberg launched the company earlier this year to help businesses optimize their payment infrastructure by integrating Pagos’ API micro-services into their payments stack.

Pagos offers a range of four products to help understand and build a better payment infrastructure. Offerings include Parrot, which provides enhanced Issuer Identification Number or bank identification number data; Peacock, which connects to business’ processors to provide payment analysis and optimization tools; Canary, which detects patterns and predicts opportunities from customer data; and Toucan, an API to integrate network tokenization into any payment stack.

“The challenge we saw pretty much for every one of our customers was that they didn’t have enough knowledge, not enough data and not enough tools to be able to execute a strategy around payment processing or know how to optimize it,” Bäck told TechCrunch. “This means they are a lot slower and they have a much harder time doing all the things they need to do and producing the results they want.”

Pagos holds a lot of promise, and not only because of consumers’ recent shift to online shopping and digital payments. As Chris Gardner, partner at Boston-based Underscore VC explained, “…their potential market is every e-commerce merchant in the world — and there are millions of them. Those are two potent ingredients in a winning recipe.” Additionally, company Founders Bäck and Drouart have both held senior leadership roles at PayPal for almost a decade, while Blomberg has launched seven startups, five of which were acquired, over his career.

Photo by Josue Isai Ramos Figueroa on Unsplash

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J’rrive! Arival Bank Launches As a Fully Licensed and Regulated Bank

J’rrive! Arival Bank Launches As a Fully Licensed and Regulated Bank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Arival Bank, Daily news

Arival Bank, which won Best of Show in its FinovateAsia debut in 2018, is now a fully licensed and regulated bank. The company was granted its U.S.-based banking license in Puerto Rico and will leverage its “U.S.-based but internationally friendly” license to work with customers around the world. The license generally allows banks to offer full stack fiat banking services, upon receiving the necessary authorization from the local regulator.

Arival Bank’s primary customers are international technology firms. The bank offers these companies USD-based bank accounts, and supports both domestic and international payments for global technology companies. Arival so far has onboarded more than 100 business customers from more than 25 countries, with the biggest demand coming from firms in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., European Union, and Singapore. Arival has experienced 1.7x month-over-month growth and boasts $13 million in assets under management.

“We’re focused on providing bank accounts to customers who have been labeled as ‘abnormal’ or ‘too risky’ by traditional banks,” Arival Bank COO Jeremy Berger explained in a statement. These firms include everything from international tech startups, digital SMEs, and money service businesses, to crypto exchanges and blockchain startups. “We’ve proudly turned this market of misfits into our niche, and we strongly believe the market demand of the ‘abnormal’ will soon outgrow the demand of the traditional banking clientele,” he said.

Arival’s management team (Director of IT Security Raul Rosado, Head of Finance Vivien Fernandez, CCO Sonia Camacho, Head of Global Compliance Ana Cavallini, Co-Founders Igor Pesin and Jeremy Berger) at the Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions in San Juan, Puerto Rico. 

In terms of traction, Arival Bank recently was invited to FinCEN’s innovation program to showcase its compliance technology to more than 20 top U.S. regulators. FinCEN is the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury that focuses on defending the financial system against criminal and illicit activity, including money laundering. “We’ve built a compliance-first culture and like to think of ourselves as a cutting-edge compliance firm with a banking license,” Berger said. “That’s really our X factor at the end of the day.”

Additionally, Arival Bank has inked a partnership with Railsbank to launch SGD accounts and local payments as part of its borderless account opening offering. The company noted that it may leverage its relationship with Railsbank to expand its services in regions like Europe and Latin America.

“We’ve achieved significant traction since our launch – in large part thanks to our supportive group of visionary investors from our Seed and Pre-A rounds,” Arival Bank co-founder and CFO Igor Pesin said. “They’ve enabled us to invest heavily into key facets of building a digital bank fit for the 21st century: licensing, technology, infrastructure, compliance, and user experience.”

“We’re starting to gear up for our Series A round as we enter a new phase of growth driven by scaling our footprint internationally,” Pesin added. “Being live operationally is somewhat atypical for a licensed digital bank at their Series A round. In other words, our commitment to infrastructure meets our readiness to scale. And we have the license, product, and team to become the go-to digital bank for a new generation of businesses and entrepreneurs.”

Founded in 2018, Arival has 50 employees and hopes to double its workforce by 2022. The company’s investors to date include SeedInvest, Crowdcube, and Polyvalent Capital. Earlier his year, Arival Bank was nominated by Daily Finance as one of the top Fintech Companies in Singapore.

Photo by Donald Tong from Pexels

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SumUp Acquires FiveStars to Enter U.S. Market

SumUp Acquires FiveStars to Enter U.S. Market
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions, SumUp

Just days after relaunching its online store and appointing a new CEO for its European operations, point of sale (POS) technology provider SumUp announced the acquisition of customer loyalty startup Fivestars for $317 million. The purchase marks SumUp’s sixth overall acquisition but its first in the U.S.

“Our global community of merchants has battled through lockdowns and volatility and we’re confident that this acquisition will further energize the U.S.’s recovering small business economy,” said SumUp Co-founder Marc-Alexander Christ. “Now is the time to make sure our presence is as strong in the U.S. as it is in Europe and, by acquiring Fivestars, SumUp will deliver for U.S.-based merchants as it has in other international markets.”

SumUp launched in 2011 and now helps three million merchants across the globe get paid. The company offers card reader, QR code and POS payment technologies, along with management and reporting tools and invoicing capabilities. Lacking in this product lineup, however, are loyalty and rewards offerings. This is where the integration of Fivestars’ technology comes in. Providing small business clients a way to reward their customers and build loyalty will help SumUp compete with other POS technology providers such as Square, Shopify, PayPal and Zettle.

Founded in 2010, Fivestars helps businesses set up a digital rewards program that gives customers points and gifts for their purchases. The technology automatically sends campaigns to welcome new customers, celebrate their birthdays, and bring back customers who haven’t visited recently. Fivestars also offers enterprise loyalty programs for larger franchises; clients include brands such as Play it Again Sports, Super Cuts, and Orange Leaf.

The acquisition will also help SumUp launch operations in a new geographical market. The U.K.-based company will now have access to Fivestars’ 70 million consumer members and 12,000 small businesses; a network which drives $3 billion in sales and 100 million transactions each year. Fivestars’ San-Francisco-based team, along with its CEO, Victor Ho, will remain in their roles and continue to operate Fivestars.

SumUp raised $869 million (€750 million) earlier this year, bringing its total funding to $1.4 billion. The company supports over three million merchant users in 34 markets.

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Coinbase to Launch NFT Marketplace by Year’s End

Coinbase to Launch NFT Marketplace by Year’s End
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Coinbase, Daily news

Cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase announced plans this week to launch its own NFT marketplace. Dubbed Coinbase NFT, the new marketplace will help users mint, purchase, showcase, and discover NFTs.

“Just as Coinbase helped millions of people access Bitcoin for the first time in an easy and trusted way — we want to do the same for the NFTs,” said Coinbase VP of Product and Ecosystem Sanchan Saxena.

Coinbase NFT, which the company aims to launch at the end of this year, will offer a user-friendly interface that the company said will be “as simple as tapping a few buttons.” The new platform will be creator-centric, placing art and the artist’s experience at the forefront.

Coinbase is putting creators first by leveraging decentralized contracts and metadata transparency to help artists maintain creative control. Additionally, the platform will cultivate a community for artists and their fans using social features to help users discover and discuss NFTs. Coinbase NFT will curate a personal feed based on users’ interests. User profiles will showcase all of their NFTs and will help them connect with like-minded collectors and artists.

“Our ambition with Coinbase NFT is to allow everyone to benefit from their creative spark; to contribute to a future where the creator economy isn’t a small subset of the real economy, but a central driver,” said Saxena.

Coinbase NFT will compete with NFT exchange platforms such as OpenSea, one of the major players in the space. According to TechCrunch, OpenSea facilitated $3.4 billion in transaction volume in August of this year. Coinbase NFT boasts two differentiating factors that set it apart from OpenSea. The first is that Coinbase is placing a large focus on the social and community aspects of its tool, something that OpenSea lacks. Coinbase’s second differentiation is that it comes with brand recognition and a built-in client base of 68 million users.

Currently, there is no word from Coinbase on the commission percentage it will charge artists, nor on the royalty percentage for perpetual trades. Whatever it decides, it will need to compete with OpenSea’s relatively-low 2.5% fee.

Coinbase went public on the NASDAQ earlier this year, trading under the ticker COIN. The San Francisco-based company’s user numbers increased 44% in the third quarter of this year, up from 56 million users in the previous quarter. Brian Armstrong is CEO.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

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Billtrust Acquires iController for $58 Million

Billtrust Acquires iController for $58 Million
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions

Accounts receivable automation firm Billtrust made its first acquisition since going public via a SPAC merger a year ago. The New Jersey-based company purchased collections management company iController for $58 million.

Belgium-based iController was founded in 2017 and offers a SaaS product that provides credit and collections professionals visibility into cash flow management. Billtrust will acquire the iController team, along with the company’s 566 Europe-based clients. iController employees will continue working in the company’s offices in Belgium The Netherlands.

“Acquiring a great company like iController is consistent with our growth plan of strategic global expansion in targeted ways to broaden our customer footprint and provide extended value to our current customers,” added Billtrust Founder and CEO Flint Lane.

Billtrust was founded in 2001 and today’s deal marks the company’s eighth acquisition.

Billtrust offers a wide variety of products, including credit, ecommerce, invoicing, payments, managed services, training, and more. The company also offers a collections tool, which will be enhanced with iController’s collections product. Billtrust President Steve Pinado described iController as “a strong strategic fit,” saying that the company will help Billtrust not only expand its physical presence in the European market but also enhance its collections capabilities.

In 2013, Billtrust launched its Business Payments Network, a service that connects suppliers to accounts payable automation platforms buyers are using to pay, as well as to a network of third-party banks and ERPs. Earlier this year, the company updated the platform to now support bi-directional exchange of transactional data and documents. The new release now enables invoice presentment to accounts payable portals.

Photo by fauxels from Pexels

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EBA Clearing, SWIFT, and The Clearing House Partner for Cross-Border Payments

EBA Clearing, SWIFT, and The Clearing House Partner for Cross-Border Payments
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news

Three payments powerhouses have partnered this week in a movement toward fast and seamless cross-border payments. France’s EBA Clearing, Belgium’s SWIFT, and the U.S.’s The Clearing House (TCH) are working together to launch Immediate Cross-Border Payments (IXB).

IXB is a new initiative that can synchronize settlements in two different, instant payment systems and convert real-time messages between both systems. A total of 11 banks contributed to IXB’s design. Seven banks, including Bank of America, BBVA Group, Citi, HSBC, Intesa Sanpaolo Bank, J.P. Morgan, and PNC Bank, participated in the proof of concept alongside EBA Clearing, SWIFT, and TCH, three private-sector, member-owned companies.

“IXB demonstrates how the current ecosystem of cross-border payments may be enhanced and made suitable for new high-volume 24/7 business,” said EBA Head of Service Development and Management Erwin Kulk. “In combination with an international request to pay, its potential applications would be limitless.”

The impetus of IXB is the fact that consumers and businesses have come to expect domestic payments to be sent and received in real time. In their minds, cross-border transactions should be no different.

IXP leverages regional payments infrastructure, such as the RTP network in the U.S. and RT1 in Europe, to help banks of all sizes offer instant, cross-border payments more easily. That’s because, by relying on existing infrastructure, banks don’t need to build or connect to a separate network.

“By utilizing existing faster payments systems, financial institutions can leverage existing processes, protocols, and technology to make the user experience seamless across payment types, whether domestic or cross border,” said TCH’s EVP for Product Development Russ Waterhouse.

Photo by ActionVance on Unsplash

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Stellar and Circle Help MoneyGram Tap the Power of Digital Assets

Stellar and Circle Help MoneyGram Tap the Power of Digital Assets
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, MoneyGram

MoneyGram, a pre-digital P2P payments player, announced a collaboration this week that will send funds faster and offer consumers more options.

The Texas-based money transfer company is partnering with Stellar Development Foundation, a non-profit that supports the development and growth of the Stellar blockchain network, and Circle, an online platform that enables users to send money. The partnerships will enable consumers using Circle’s USDC stablecoin to receive cash funding and payout in local currency, and will facilitate near-instant backend settlement.

As Stellar Development Foundation CEO Denelle Dixon explained, the partnership combines the reach of MoneyGram’s services with the speed and low cost of transactions on Stellar. As a result, “a new segment of cash users will be able to convert their cash into and out of USDC, giving them access to fast and affordable digital asset services that may have previously been out of reach,” Dixon said.

Once the partnership goes live, end consumers will be able to use MoneyGram to convert USDC to cash, or cash to USDC. United Texas Bank will serve as a settlement bank between Circle and MoneyGram. Thanks to Circle’s USDC, consumers will also see their funds settle in near-real-time, resulting in accelerated money movement, improved efficiency, and reduced risk.

“At MoneyGram, one of our top strategic priorities is to pioneer cross-border payment innovation and blockchain-enabled settlement, and we’re thrilled to now work with the Stellar Development Foundation to further our efforts,” said MoneyGram Chairman and CEO Alex Holmes. “As crypto and digital currencies rise in prominence, we’re especially optimistic about the potential of stablecoins as a method to streamline cross-border payments. Given our expertise in global payments, blockchain, and compliance, we are extremely well-positioned to continue to be the leader in building bridges to connect digital currencies with local fiat currencies.”

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen MoneyGram using blockchain technology. The money transfer giant partnered with Ripple in 2019 to leverage XRP for cross-border payment and foreign exchange settlement. That partnership has since ended, but MoneyGram has gone on to initiate other partnerships that provide broad consumer access to digital currencies.

Photo by Universal Eye on Unsplash

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Digital Insurance Platform Sureify Secures $15 Million in Series C Funding

Digital Insurance Platform Sureify Secures $15 Million in Series C Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Funding, Sureify

In a round led by Aspen Capital Group, digital insurance platform Sureify has raised $15 million in Series C financing. The investment takes the company’s total equity capital to more than $26 million, and will enable Sureify to add to its platform and boost its research and development efforts.

“Ultimately, this funding lets us expand our insurers’ capabilities across digital sales, digital service, and digital engagement,” Sureify CEO Dustin Yoder said. “There is a massive opportunity to continue modernizing the legacy aspects of this industry and this investment in Sureify reinforces that we will help the traditional insurer compete against the emerging digital brands.”

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in San Jose, California, Sureify made its Finovate debut two years later at FinovateSpring 2014. In the time since, the company gained industry-leading life insurance companies as clients – including Allstate, Principal, State Farm, and Penn Mutual-owned Vantis Life. While a growing number of companies have pursued a direct-to-consumer approach to bringing innovation to the insurance industry, Sureify is among those insurtechs that is dedicated to helping legacy insurers successfully incorporate digital technology to better serve their customers. This includes leveraging personalized sales and service to enable insurers to deepen agent/policyholder relationships and boost ROI.

“Sureify has been on a mission to modernize the life insurance industry for nearly 10 years,” Yoder said. “We’ve now proven both large and small life insurers can digitally transform to compete against the direct-to-consumer entrants and meet the ever-changing consumer expectations year over year.” Yoder noted that Sureify’s technology enables insurance providers to pursue modernization without having to abandon their existing systems, and to do so quickly and without undue expense. “There are no longer questions about if traditional insurers can digitally transform sales, service, or engagement,” Yoder said. “The only real question is when?”

Sureify’s solutions include LifetimeACQUIRE, an omnichannel sales enabling solution that leverages quoting, e-application, and automated underwriting to drive placement rates; LifetimeSERVICE, which offers self-service portals and native apps for in-force customers; and LifetimeENGAGE, which features multi-faceted engagement programs and analytics to foster greater lifetime value of individual policyholders.

This year, Sureify has made a number of key executive changes and additions. The company began 2021 with the appointment of a new president Dan Gordon, who had served as Sureify’s Head of Strategy since 2018. The company brought on Ben Brantley as Chief Technology Officer in June and, last month, announced new Vice President of Product Rob Anagnoson.

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NatWest Acquires RoosterMoney

NatWest Acquires RoosterMoney
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions

U.K. bank NatWest acquired children’s allowance-tracking app RoosterMoney this week. Financial terms of the deal are undisclosed.

NatWest plans to integrate RoosterMoney’s Star Chart, Virtual Money Tracker, and Chore Manager into its own offerings in order to provide tools for families and children to learn to manage their allowance money and other funds.

“We want NatWest to be the easiest and most useful bank for families and young people,” said Head of Youth, Retail Banking at NatWest Group Simon Watson. “We know that the world of money is changing, and we want to help parents, carers, and young people feel confident and capable – Rooster helps us do just that.”

Rooster was founded in 2016 and helps its 130,000 U.K. users to learn the basics about money– earning, spending, saving, and giving. In addition to a digital chore chart, RoosterMoney offers a debit card that pairs with the app to offer parental control such as turning the card on and off, blocking certain merchants, and real-time spending notifications.

“At RoosterMoney we believe that if you build financial capability early on, you’re better prepared to take on the challenges that life throws at you,” said RoosterMoney CEO Will Carmichael. “That’s totally aligned with the bank’s purpose and we’re very excited about working together to help more parents and kids to build their financial confidence.”

NatWet said that it will allow RoosterMoney’s existing customers to continue to use the app as usual.

This isn’t NatWest’s first entrance into the youth banking products market. The bank has offered its MoneySense financial education program, that targets kids ages five to 18, for 25 years. Additionally, NatWest recently launched HouseMate, a bill-splitting app for renters, and Island Saver, a game to help young customers learn about money management.

Photo by pan xiaozhen on Unsplash

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BioCatch Unveils Age Analysis Capability to Defend Seniors Against Fraud

BioCatch Unveils Age Analysis Capability to Defend Seniors Against Fraud
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, BioCatch, Daily news

Behavioral biometrics innovator BioCatch launched its latest fraud-fighting solution this week. Age Analysis is a new account opening protection capability especially designed to help protect older consumers from fraud and other forms of cybercrime.

“We developed Age Analysis with enhancing customer protection and user experience as our guiding principles,” BioCatch Chief Operating Officer Gadi Mazor explained. “At BioCatch, we work closely with our clients to develop the most forward-thinking behavioral solutions to solve the ever-evolving challenges in combating fraud. Age Analysis empowers financial institutions with the behavioral verification protections most needed to address the growing threat of application fraud.”

The new offering, currently deployed by a number of international organizations as well as a “major credit card issuer,” was developed after noting that 40% of confirmed fraudulent credit card applications involved an applicant above the age of 60. BioCatch also discovered that a significant number of these applications ended up in manual review, increasing both the time spent processing the application as well as diminishing the user experience for older applicants.

Age Analysis works by extracting physical, cognitive, and other behavioral characteristics as the user engages in the account opening process. The technology monitors the activity continuously, predicting what BioCatch refers to as the user’s “approximate behavioral age” and compares it to the applicant’s declared age. If there are significant differences between the two, BioCatch adjusts the user’s risk score to reflect the anomaly.

The technology is based on the finding that certain behavioral characteristics involved in data input tend to change as individuals age. These include factors such as mouse click duration, mobile device orientation preferences, and even actions as specific as the time it takes for a user to shift from the CTRL key to a letter key when inputing data. Learn more about how Age Analysis works, and how it has helped increase company’s ability to detect account opening fraud and boost ROI, in BioCatch’s case study, Top Card Issuers Partner with BioCatch to Protect Senior Citizens from Fraud and Saving Millions.

A Finovate alum since its debut at FinovateFall 2014, BioCatch was founded in 2011 by Avi Turgemen, Benny Rosenbaum, and Uri Rivner to leverage insights derived from Turgemen’s experience in military intelligence to fight online fraud and other cybercrime. Most recently, the company announced joining Alkami Technology’s Gold Partner Program to bring its behavioral biometric technology to Alkami’s bank and credit union customers. In August, BioCatch teamed up with digital financial solution provider MoData to help the company’s clients in Africa better defend themselves against online fraud.

BioCatch has raised more than $213 million in funding from investors including Barclays and HSBC. The company has offices in both New York City and Tel Aviv, Israel.

Photo by Yan Krukov from Pexels

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SumUp Enhances Online Store; Adds New European CEO

SumUp Enhances Online Store; Adds New European CEO
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, SumUp

London-based digital payments innovator SumUp announced the relaunch of its online store and the appointment of a new CEO for Europe: Michael Schrezenmaier.

The decision to enhance the SumUp Online Store is part of a strategic pivot toward online retail, an industry that grew significantly during the pandemic. “E-commerce has completely changed since we first launched the Online Store,” SumUp Vice President of Growth, Mark Wang said. “This shift has meant that an exponentially growing number of people now prefer to shop online.” The SumUp Online Store was initially launched in May 2020.

Among the new features offered are tools to enable business owners to set up a store in minutes due to a simplified signup process, a theme editor to customize storefronts, and a learning hub to support both new and veteran business owners. The upgraded platform also will no longer charge subscription fees, making it that much accessible to more small businesses.

“At SumUp our mission with the new Online Store is to provide a better platform for small businesses to reach customers anywhere in the world,” Wang added. “We are constantly working to build innovations that empower anyone to become an entrepreneur.”

Moving from platforms to people, SumUp also announced today that it has appointed Michael Schrezenmaier as its new CEO of Europe. Schrezenmaier comes to SumUp after serving as Chief Operating Officer and interim co-CEO for CRM platform Pipedrive and nearly seven years as COO at international dating company Spark Networks.

“SumUp is a company known for its entrepreneurial spirit and willingness to embrace change which, combined with its growth journey and continued upward trajectory, makes this an exciting time to join,” Schrezenmaier said, adding praise for the company’s innovation, “dedication to merchants,” and its leadership in the payment space overall.

Marc-Alexander Christ, co-founder of SumUp underscored the “quirks” and regional differences in Europe – and the unique aspects of the average European’s relationship with money – in explaining why Schrezenmaier was the right pick for the CEO spot. Christ called Schrezenmaier “a prime example of the type of person who will drive the company forward as we look to uphold our strong position in Europe – and deliver for our merchants.”

Founded in 2012 and making its Finovate debut a year later at FinovateEurope, SumUp has grown into a global digital commerce enabler and payments company. SumUp supports more than three million merchants around the world and boasts a workforce of 2,600+. The company has raised $1.4 billion in funding, most recently securing $893 million in debt financing in March of this year.

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich from Pexels

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Grab Takes Majority Stake in E-Payment Service OVO

Grab Takes Majority Stake in E-Payment Service OVO
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Daily news, Mergers & Acquisitions

Southeast Asia’s super app Grab is moving even further into the payment solutions space this week. The company has more than doubled its stake in e-wallet app OVO.

Grab’s stake in Bumi Cakrawala Perkasa, OVO’s parent company, has gone from 39% to 90%. Currently, the remaining 10% of OVO is split equally between two firms, IDE Teknologi Indonesia and Cakra Finansindo Investama, which both claim a 5% stake.

“We are pleased to complete the first part of a wider exercise to restructure our ownership. We welcome a greater commitment from Grab,” said an OVO spokesperson. “We’re working in close consultation with the regulators to complete the ownership restructuring process, and are confident this will allow us to better serve the financial services needs of Indonesians.”

OVO was launched as a corporate rewards system for Lippo Group and in 2017 expanded to e-payments. According to data released last year from Bank Indonesia, OVO processed 37% of all digital wallet transactions in Indonesia, marking the largest share in the nation.

According to Nikkei Asia, Grab will likely bring more Indonesia-based investors to acquire stakes in OVO. That is because the region’s central bank, Bank Indonesia, stipulates that at least 15% of e-payment operators needs to be locally owned. Nikkei Asia cited local media conglomerate Elang Mahkota Teknologi as a potential candidate for the purchase.

To date, Grab has acquired three companies, including B2B2C wealthtech provider Bento, mobile payments solutions provider iKaaz, and ecommerce solutions company Kudo.

After launching as a ride-hailing company, Grab has expanded to offer a wide variety of products and services (hence its classification as a super app). The Southeast Asia-based company now serves consumers, merchants, and drivers with deliveries, financial services, a hotel-booking tool, payment processing and rewards, business financing, and more.

Photo by Jason Miraples on Unsplash

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