Blog
September 6, 2021
SEA’s Shopee is one of the largest eCommerce sites in Southeast Asia, and the company now has its sights on dominating the market in Latin America. The company is steadily expanding its presence in the region after the success of its eCommerce platform in Brazil[i]. After first launching in 2019, Shopee had become the 9th […]
Blog
September 1, 2021
The mobile payments landscape in Southeast Asia continues to evolve as consumers embrace mCommerce. Still, merchants need to offer flexible billing mechanisms to reach as many customers as possible and partner with the right payment providers to make the most of the opportunity. The recent collaboration between PromptPay and Rapyd in Thailand is an example […]
Blog
August 30, 2021
Only two types of eCommerce payment methods will grow their share of online shopping transactions between 2020 and 2024, according to a new report: mobile wallet and buy now pay later services. But whereas alternative payment mechanisms (APMs) may increase their share of transaction volume and value over the next few years, the migration will […]
Blog
August 3, 2021
Visa’s US$963m acquisition of UK payments start-up Currencycloud follows a record quarter for global venture capitalist backed funding for fintech companies. The deals highlight the increasingly high levels of investment behind companies engaged in online financial services providers in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic when large numbers of consumers shunned cash and debit/credit card […]
Blog
July 28, 2021
US telco Verizon and Mastercard plan to work together to harness fifth generation (5G) mobile network technology to deliver smartphone-enabled payments for merchants and consumers.[i] The two companies will work to scale up “Tap on Phone” capabilities which enable retailers to accept payments from many contactless cards or electronic wallets (eWallet) from the customer’s NFC […]
Blog
July 27, 2021
The FIS Worldpay Global Payment Risk Mitigation report provides crucial insight into global payment fraud that eCommerce merchants can learn to safeguard their revenue. It found that 38% of online merchants lose 6% or more of their turnover to payment fraud, with many also seeing increased operational expenses and customer churn as a result. Consequently, […]
Blog
July 20, 2021
Market entry for mobile developers is getting steadily easier after Microsoft dropped its fees for most of the apps being available in its Windows store. Multinational eCommerce platform provider Shopify quickly followed suit for apps on its App Store, indicating a new approach amongst storefront owners. They seem keen to expand beyond the traditional model […]
Blog
July 19, 2021
Ualá’s personal finance app’s runaway success demonstrates how fintechs can thrive in Latin America by offering financial services to customers with smartphones but not bank accounts. Since being founded in 2017, the start-up has grown to employ 800 people and has been valued at up to US$1bn after investment heavyweights including George Soros, Bessemer Venture […]
Blog
July 7, 2021
The proposed merger of three mobile payment platforms in Scandinavia suggests that further consolidation of the fast-growing payments industry could be underway as smaller local players beef up their businesses to better compete with global giants. Danske Bank’s MobilePay will join forces with Pivo, owned by Finland’s OP Financial Group, and Vipps, owned by a […]
Blog
July 5, 2021
The imminent IPO coming this November of digital wallet and payments firm Paytm is India’s most significant. Paytm has already secured up to US$4.4bn of investment, including a Series G round which derived US$1bn from backers including Alipay owner Ant Financial and SoftBank Vision Fund[i], at a valuation of US$16 billion. Its debut on the […]
Blog
June 29, 2021
Mobile payments are booming in South Korea, and the country’s citizens appear to prefer homegrown electronic wallets (eWallets) to those provided by the international giants of the digital economy. GlobalData estimates that the value of mobile wallet transactions in South Korea will more than double from US$181.6bn in 2020 to US$503.5bn by 2024, having already […]
Blog
June 23, 2021
The proposed merger of payments firm Gojek and eCommerce company Tokopedia valued at around US$18bn, highlights the potential of Indonesia’s digital economy and could form the basis of the country’s first Super App. The two firms are already close commercial partners, having worked together to accelerate Tokopedia’s eCommerce deliveries using Gojek’s local network of ride-hailing […]