GMO Payment Gateway partners with 2C2P to launch in Thailand

Today, GMO Internet Group‘s online payment service provider, GMO Payment Gateway Inc. (TSE1:3769), has announced the Thai launch of its global payment processing service, GMO-PG Global Payment, in partnership with regional epayment gateway, 2C2P. This marks the fifth overseas entity for the Japan-based company after Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan.

See: 10 startups that can beat PayPal in Southeast Asia

Focusing on Asia, GMO-PG Global Payment provides online payment processing solutions for Japanese ecommerce businesses with a local presence in markets outside of Japan. By connecting to GMO-PG Global Platform, ecommerce businesses can accept multiple payment methods in multiple countries. GMO-PG normally sets up local offices in every country covered by GMO-PG Global Platform and provides Japanese-language support to merchants including purchase negotiations and operations support.

According to GMO-PG, the company chose Thailand as its latest destination because of the high demand for Japanese ecommerce stores and digital content in the country.

When asked to elaborate on the company’s expansion into Thailand during a period of political instability, Ryu Muramatsu, director and founding partner of GMO Venture Partners, told Tech in Asia:

We have planned this for a long time. We started our Southeast Asia strategy back in 2012. Besides our Singapore HQ, we have offices in Malaysia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. These are all high per-capita GDP countries. Thailand is the next highest and it already has a big ecommerce market. In Japan, we have 47,000 online merchants and our annual transaction value is US$13 billion. It took us almost 20 years to get to this point. The payment business is a long-term business, and expansion in Southeast Asia is a 10-year investment for us. We don’t think in the short term.