Alibaba-backed TrueMoney wants to be Thailand’s everyday app for financial services

Grab and Gojek may have a strong grip on Southeast Asia’s payments space because of their vast user and driver network, but in Thailand, a local fintech company with substantial financial backing wants to buck that trend.

TrueMoney was initially established as an e-payments provider under the Charoen Pokphand (CP) Group in 2003. But now it has ambitions to become an all-in-one financial services app, offering microfinance and investment services as well as improving financial access for its users, particularly underbanked consumers and businesses.

A TrueMoney center / Photo credit: Ascend Money

The company currently serves over 40 million users across its home market and five other countries – Myanmar, Indonesia, Cambodia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Its full suite of services is only available to users in Thailand, where TrueMoney has 8.4 million annual active users out of the country’s population of 69 million. (The company declined to disclose its monthly active users.) That’s a penetration rate of 12%, indicating that there’s much room for growth.

Launched in 2013, TrueMoney’s e-wallet enables money transfers, mobile top-ups, and bill payments as well as shopping via virtual or prepaid debit cards. Users can also buy travel and car insurance as well as obtain microfinance services such as smartphone device loans from TrueShop or nanofinance services for small and medium-sized businesses at Makro wholesale superstore.

Both TrueShop and Makro are also part of the CP Group. Specifically, TrueMoney comes under Ascend Money, which is the financial services arm of another CP subsidiary, Ascend Group. CP Group operates 14 business units across sectors including agriculture, retail, ecommerce, media, and real estate that collectively rang up US$63 billion in revenues in 2018.

TrueMoney also embarked on its international expansion last year, starting in neighboring Myanmar, which is now its third-largest market after Thailand and Cambodia.

The company is growing fast. Tanyapong Thamavaranukupt, co-president of Ascend Money, tells Tech in Asia that year-on-year volume of transactions processed have increased by 37% between 2017 and 2018. “We aim to grow the number of our users to 58.4 million – a 46% increase – by this year,” he shares.

Ascend Money Co-President Tanyapong Thamavaranukupt / Photo credit: Ascend Money

Recognizing that their existing pool of users and brand name are advantages, large conglomerates are creating separate business units to capitalize on them. Content app TrueID was rolled out by True Digital Group, the innovation arm of CP subsidiary True Corporation in 2017, and it’s now a leading player in the country. Indonesia’s Lippo Group also launched its own payments venture Ovo, to great success.

As such, tie-ups between Ascend Money and CP Group-owned businesses are no coincidence. TrueMoney is deeply embedded in a mega-ecosystem that includes retail shops and convenience stores such as 7-Eleven and CP Freshmart as well as food and beverage establishments like Chester’s Grill and telecommunications firm True Group, where users can perform top-ups and benefit from cashback and loyalty deals and choose content offerings on TrueID.

ASEAN footprint

While the TrueMoney e-wallet is less ubiquitous outside of Thailand, it’s also accessible in Cambodia and Vietnam.

Aside from payments, a second key revenue driver is the company’s domestic and international remittances business from its five other markets. TrueMoney also provides bus ticketing and payroll services in Cambodia, international remittance and insurance services in Myanmar, and cashless payment and lending to SMEs in the Philippines.

Enter Alipay

Ecosystem effects

Digital payment adoption in Thailand