IOUpay surges following Payment Gateway agreements

Special Report: IOUpay has taken a significant step in its plans for BNPL growth with two Payment Gateway partnerships and an agreement with one of Malaysia’s top banks.

Listed payments company IOUpay (ASX:IOU) has signed Merchant Service Agreements with two prominent Payment Gateway providers in Malaysia, as well as one of Malaysia’s leading banks.

The bank, which is one of Malaysia’s largest commercial banks with over 7000 e-commerce merchants and 10,000+ in-store merchants, will enable IOUpay to effectively process BNPL payments as approved by Visa and Mastercard.

These developments form part of the ongoing growth plan for the digital payments company in South East Asia. Earlier this year, IOUpay identified Malaysia, one of its core markets, as being ‘under-banked’ and experiencing strong demand for BNPL services.

Following a long and complex process of due diligence, IOUpay is now one step closer to its goal of being able to accelerate the growth of its own BNPL platform in the region.

A clear roadmap for growth

2020 has been a big year for IOUpay. A restructure in July saw a shift in strategy, partnered with the renaming of the business from iSentric.

The rebranding was the final step in establishing a clear roadmap for growth, with a focus on fintech and an eye on the expanding e-commerce sector in South East Asia. Last month the company completed a $10m placement to fund its plans.

These Merchant Service Agreements, announced as part of the company’s operational update, are a necessary and important stepping stone in that BNPL growth and IOUpay will continue to focus on expansion in this area over the next few months.

Transforming payment services in SEA

Also announced today were a number of system updates and agreements with leading credit card data service providers. IOUpay is already one of the largest mobile banking and payment services providers in Malaysia, currently processing more than 17 million transactions per month, but Malaysian CEO, KL Khong, advised earlier this year there is still significant growth potential in the SEA region.

“In a region with large under-banked populations and a systemic lack of consumer credit, this demand side growth presents the company with significant supply side upside,” Khong said.

IOUpay’s corporate customers are also indicating “strong consumer demand for BNPL services”, largely due to limitations in local consumer credit and a decline in credit card usage, he said.

The company may still be in its early days, but it has significant plans for commercial growth in the coming months. IOUpay boasts top tier customers including Citigroup, Standard Chartered, Heineken, Mazda and a number of major telecom providers in SEA.

The company currently holds a market cap of $69.82m and has seen massive growth in 2020. Following today’s announcement, IOUpay surged and its shares have risen over 700% across the last six months.

With over a third of the population of SEA un-banked and a 206% increase in the number of active ecommerce users since 2015, IOUpay has a distance to go in the market. The company has advised more BNPL plans are in the pipeline for Malaysia and Indonesia in FY21 and a rewards plan is set for Q2FY21.

This article was developed in collaboration with IOUpay, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.