DigitalCFO Newsroom | 22 October 2021
Grab is expanding its merchant offerings, including the ability to purchase items now and pay later (BNPL).
Photo from Grab Careers
GRAB Financial Group (GFG), Grab’s financial services division, is extending its merchant offerings, including the availability of new “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) alternatives.
To promote merchant usage of its BNPL solution, PayLater, it has formed new agreements with payment gateways such as 2C2P, Razer Merchant Services, and iPay88, among others.
GFG competes against other pure-play BNPL firms such as Atome, Hoolah, Pace, and Rely in the BNPL sector, which is very competitive. Atome signed a US$500 million funding transaction earlier in October, indicating that these players haven’t been inactive.
Regionally, BNPL has helped firms like Finaccel achieve unicorn valuations and go public through a special purpose acquisition company deal valued at US$2.5 billion.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore has been looking into BNPL since February of this year, as concerns over rising consumer debt grow. According to a Capgemini research, consumers worldwide appear to still be interested in BNPL.
“Merchants find PayLater compelling given the scale of Grab’s ecosystem with over 25 million monthly transacting users, and many of our PayLater merchants have reported increased basket sizes and check-out rates,” said Chris Yeo, managing director and head of GrabPay, GFG.
GFG has also added new payment channels to its GrabPay wallet to increase merchant acceptance and adoption across the area. Merchants may use GrabPay through new payment gateways such as AsiaPay, Fomopay, and Revenue Group.
GFG introduced GrabMerchant Commerce on Thursday (October 21), a platform that helps businesses create e-commerce websites. In May, approximately 500 retailers from various industries signed up for a trial program.
Marketing and branding, automation, and customer relationship management, among other things, will be supported by the platform. By October 2021, a subset of the platform’s merchants will be available on the Grab app in Southeast Asia.
Source: The Business Times
