A Midas-listed VC is bullish about “payments highway”

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Once upon a time, transferring money from country to country was a pain. Today, with the rise of mobile wallets and banking apps, cross-border payments have…continued to be a pain. But here comes the good part: Singapore-based Thunes is solving this problem, and its clients already include Grab and Singtel.

Today we look at,

• The startup that’s unifying the world’s payments systems
• The ecommerce fight between Amazon vs. Reliance Retail
• Other newsy highlights such as Lalamove making its entry in the West and SoftBank going SPAC

Pay attention to this payments startup

Linking up every e-wallet and bank sounds good for us consumers. But for financial organizations, it’s a lot of work – it’s expensive, takes up a lot of resources, and requires a bunch of government licences. So fintech startup Thunes is taking up this responsibility instead.

• Thunes’ special power: The company helps customers to carry out cross-border business payments, send mass payouts to global partners, process remittances, and issue virtual accounts in various countries. It is reported to have made US$8.9 million and lost US$6.9 million in 2019 while doing so.
• On board the cross-payment train: The company has roughly 400 partners in its network to date. One of them being Grab, which uses Thunes’ application programming interface to send mass payouts to its drivers in Indonesia through banks, mobile wallets, and cash-out options.
• Making payment easy is not easy: To make all the above a reality, convincing regulators is crucial. But conversations with these parties can be unpredictable, and cross-border money transfers are vulnerable to money laundering and terrorism financing risks to boot.

Read more: Thunes is building a superhighway to unify the world’s payments systems

The ecommerce fight between Amazon and Reliance Retail

One and a half months ago, India’s largest retailer Reliance Retail announced that it was going to acquire Future Group — a conglomerate that owns popular supermarket chains like Big Bazaar and other lifestyle stores — in a deal worth over US$3.3 billion. This would give Reliance a major boost in the ecommerce space. But Amazon has cried foul: It sent a legal notice to Future Group calling a halt to the deal.

• What’s up with the deal? The acquisition is one of the biggest in India this year — it would give Reliance Retail access to over 1,800 stores spread across over 420 cities. The deal also includes Future Group’s own retail and wholesale business, as well as its logistics and warehousing arm.
• Amazon has the right to refuse: The US based ecommerce giant actually holds a 3.58% stake in Future Retail, the flagship brand of Future Group. Last year, Amazon had spent US$205 million to acquire a 49% stake in Future Coupons which gives it a hold of the 3.58% stake in Future Retail, giving it the right of first refusal to buy more stakes in the unit.
• A piece of the pie, please? Amazon’s legal notice could also be its way to acquire a stake in Reliance Retail. Just last month, the US giant had expressed interest to acquire a 40% stake in Reliance Retail. That said, no deal was concluded.

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