Ascend Money, a payments provider backed by Alibaba Group and Thai conglomerate CP Group, wants to win nearly one-sixth of southeast Asia's population in the next 18 months. How?
Thailand-based Ascend Money aims to increase its customer base five-fold to capture at least 100 million customers by 2020. Last year, the fintech company served 21.1 million customers and transacted total payment volume of $5 billion across southeast Asia, according to its press statement.
The so-called unbanked represent up to 80 percent of Southeast Asia's population, and can largely only be reached via offline methods. Hence, firms like Ascend are looking at combining online services such as digital wallets with offline transactions, via a network of agents.
«Our active users’ base has grown by four times in the last 12 months and we are by far the market leader in the wallet industry in Thailand,» said Tanyapong Thamavaranukupt, president of Ascend Money. The firm's growth stems from leveraging the extensive network of 7-Eleven convenience shops in Thailand.
7-Eleven as a Bank?
Ascend Money counts CP Group, which operates 7-Eleven in Thailand, and Ant Financial, an affiliate of Alibaba, as its main shareholders. It offers e-payment services ranging from mobile top-up, bill payments, and peer-to-peer transfers under its TrueMoney brand that serves consumers.
Thanks to the more than 60,000 agents across Southeast Asia, Ascend has a leg up over competitors. «Our business model enables us to serve not only digital consumers who are mostly concentrated in big cities, but also the underbanked population in second and third tier cities,» said Thamavaranukupt.
Ascend currently operates in six countries: Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia. To attain its ambitious goal, the fintech company hopes to tap Ant Financial and CP for technical expertise and merchant networks, respectively.
Everybody Wants To Rule
With strong momentum and powerful shareholders in its pocket, Ascend Money may be able to get a heads up in the e-payment race. However, other big players are also eyeing the throne as the region's leading e-payment provider.
Grab's GrabPay and Go-Jek's Go-Pay are other big players in Southeast Asia with e-payment solutions. In May, Grab announced that it plans to bring GrabPay into eight southeast Asian countries by end of this year.
Within the same month, Singapore's leading telecomms company SingTel announced that it has partnered gaming firm Razer to create the largest e-payment network across Southeast Asia, as reported by «Channel News Asia».
