Thailand’s Omise to acquire e-money service provider Paysbuy

vivian

July 7, 2017

Omise, an online payment platform based in Bangkok announced on Thursday that it is acquiring one of Thailand’s first payment gateway service provider Paysbuy from Total Access Communication Pcl (DTAC).

Paysbuy was founded in 2004 and acquired DTAC as a majority stakeholder in 2007.

Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed, but upon the completion of the acquisition, Paysbuy’s assets and services will be merged into Omise.

The merger is expected to give Omise access to thousands of online merchants in the startup’s target industries across Thailand and Myanmar which will help accelerate its growth in Southeast Asia.

Besides, Omise said the move will serve to benefit the startup’s innovations such as its recent OmiseGO (OMG) wallet through adopting the e-wallet service from Paysbuy and setting up a decentralized solution.

The idea behind OmiseGO is to share funds beyond peer-to-peer payments, in a network that does not require a bank account nor incur fees or cross-border costs.

“This transaction is a positive outcome for both merchants and the economy. It would enable us to accelerate the implementation of our strategy across Omise and OmiseGO’s products and services,” said Jun Hasegawa, the Founder and CEO of Omise.

“We’ve been continuously innovating and reinventing ourselves and this would enable us to grow our platform and build strong products more rapidly to help the payment ecosystem in Southeast Asia.” Hasegawa added.

The combined entity would also continue to be DTAC’s online payment solution partner and will help improve the online payment experience for DTAC customers.

Andrew Kvalseth, the chief strategy and digital officer at DTAC also commented, “This brings together two of the strongest payment providers in the country – Paysbuy with its strengths in the depth of payment products and Omise with its innovative solution focusing on best customer experience.”

Omise is currently available in Thailand and Japan, and is looking to enter Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia in the near future.

Recently, the startup has integrated the Alipay payment method into its payment suite, anticipating the 9.8 million Chinese tourists which are expected to visit Thailand in 2017 according to a Tourism Authority Thailand report.

vivian

Vivian Foo is a reporter who writes about Southeast Asia’s technology and startup space. The entry point which led her to write about the startup ecosystem was her fascination of the dot-com boom. She is taking a deep dive into how the entrepreneurial mindset works and hopes to share the insights, innovation, and stories of the startups with her readers.