Grab nabs $50m Kasikornbank funding to expand financial services in Thailand

Tarin Thaniyavarn, country head, Thailand, Grab (CL) and Patchara Samalapa, president, Kasikornbank (CR) / Photo credit: Kasikornbank

E-money licenses are like Infinity Stones. Once you’ve got one from each of Southeast Asia’s six major economies, you can begin to dominate online payments across the region.

Which means that Grab is like Thanos.

The ride-hailing juggernaut today unveiled a partnership with Kasikornbank that will see it use the Thai financial services group’s e-money license to bring a more advanced version of its GrabPay mobile wallet to the kingdom.

“This partnership makes Grab Financial the first mobile payments platform to launch e-money licensed payments services across ASEAN-6 and underlines the strength of our partnership-based strategy,” said Reuben Lai, senior managing director at Grab Financial, in a statement. Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines are the ASEAN-6 countries.

Grab’s e-wallet will be rebranded in Thailand to “GrabPay by KBank” from early next year.

In addition to paying for the ride-hailing company’s transport and delivery services, GrabPay by KBank will allow users to make payments to third-party merchants, complete online purchases, and transfer money to other users.

Further down the line, Grab will integrate additional features from Kasikornbank’s own K Plus app, and it’ll collaborate with the bank on providing loans to merchants as well as on advertising and engagement through its GrabAds platform.

See: Grab’s latest play is to become lender and insurer to Southeast Asia’s ‘middle economy’

The deal reflects similar tie-ups in Indonesia and Vietnam, where Grab has partnered with Lippo Group’s Ovo and local startup Moca, respectively, to leverage on their e-money licenses. In the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia, Grab has been awarded its own e-money licenses – though the company has partnered with the latter’s Maybank in order to acquire merchants and push adoption in the country.

Grab has also joined forces with Mastercard to offer prepaid cards that allow GrabPay payments with the US card issuer’s worldwide merchant network.

Speaking at a press briefing today, Lai confirmed that the company will be announcing further regional bank partnerships in the near future.

Another day, another wad of venture capital for Grab

Kasikornbank has also joined Grab’s ongoing series H funding round, investing US$50 million. According to Lai, it’s the largest international investment that the banking group has made to date.

Grab has secured a flurry of strategic investments from corporate backers in recent months, typically including collaborative commitments in addition to funding.