GRAB
DRIVING SOUTHEAST ASIA FORWARD Super app Grab has moved far beyond its ride-hailing roots to bring simplified financial services to the unbanked and underbanked Since launching in 2012, Grab has moved from strength to strength with more than 166 million app downloads and a network of nine million micro-entrepreneurs. This super app platform now represents the largest and most relevant ecosystem in the region, partnering with more than 600,000 online and offline merchants. It extends across transport, mobile payments, financial services and the delivery of food, packages and groceries for millions of people in Southeast Asia. Grab is now turning its attention to building out its financial services offering even further, so that no one misses out on the benefits of the region’s current economic transformation. In a region where cash has long been king, the days of pulling out notes and coins are becoming numbered, as more people are making payments by swiping or tapping on their mobile phones. According to a joint report from Google, Temasek
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and Bain, the adoption of digital payments in Southeast Asia has reached an inflection point and is expected to cross $1trillion by 2025, accounting for almost one in every two dollars spent in the region. With digital payments becoming the new norm, Grab has quickly cemented itself as the preferred ewallet. Grab’s strategic partnership with Ovo in Indonesia has created the most widely accepted payments ecosystem and the market leader by total payments volume.
THE OPPORTUNITY IN FINTECH The successful adoption and growing cross-vertical usage of GrabPay made it the perfect launchpad for Grab to establish itself as the largest fintech player in Southeast Asia. It now has a comprehensive offering that includes payments, in-app rewards and financial services like lending, insurance, and remittance. Reuben Lai, Senior Managing Director of Grab Financial Group, says that financial services is the natural
next step in the company’s journey to empower and enable stakeholders across the eight countries (and 339 cities) it currently serves. “Our focus has always been on solving the big problems in the region. Similar to Grab’s objective in transport, where traffic congestion and safety were issues, introducing financial services through our app has allowed us to reach millions of people whose needs were not being met by the incumbent banks. It has allowed our merchants, driver-partners and, eventually, passengers to have greater access to credit, enabling them to grow their micro-businesses and realise their economic potential.” SMEs are an important target of Grab’s offering. According to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), SMEs employ between 52 per cent and 97 per cent of the total workforce and comprise between 89 per cent and 99 per cent of all companies in ASEAN, making them a critical pillar in the region’s continued economic growth. This is why Grab currently offers loans to SMEs in Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines through GrabFinance to help small
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