Grab’s acquisition of Atome signals need for wider ecosystem play for standalone BNPL platforms
Buy-now-pay-later players need a lower cost of capital and access to data to improve their credit underwriting
Grab's acquisition of Atome Financial signals the need for standalone buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) platforms to become more integrated within wider ecosystem play. The Singapore-based Grab is purchasing a 60% stake in the Hong Kong-listed atome Financial for US$1.5 billion. BNPL services, which are particularly appealing to the unbanked populations in emerging markets, have faced increasing regulatory pressure in recent years.
In 2023, regulators in Indonesia capped daily interest rates for BNPL players at 0.1% for 2026 and beyond. This, coupled with a higher interest-rate environment and costs of acquiring customers, has placed pressure on BNPL companies. In the past decade, around 20% of BNPL service providers in the South-east Asian market have struggled, especially in Singapore where consumers have greater access to credit.
Grab offers Atome Financial access to its large consumer ecosystem and rich transactional data, addressing key constraints faced by standalone BNPL players.
Written by urgent.news from The Business Times - Companies & Markets's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
