Adyen to help Grab extend payment platform in Southeast Asia

Hayashi explains Adyen's growth strategy at a briefing at the new Singapore office.

Adyen, the global payments technology company which enables companies to accept payments from their customers using any payment method over any sales channel, has announced that Grab, the Southeast Asian ride-hailing platform, has will extend the capabilities of its GrabPay platform with Adyen. Grab will partner with Adyen to deliver a consistent, frictionless payment experience for customers travelling across markets regardless of their device or payment method in Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

“As part of Grab’s drive to make ride-hailing even safer, easier and more accessible to everyone in Southeast Asia, providing trusted, seamless mobile payments is crucial for the overall customer experience. Grab wanted a partner who could support a variety of traditional and alternative payment methods to support our growth across the region. Adyen fits the bill and we are excited at now being able to offer our passengers even more payment options when they pay through GrabPay,” said Joel Yarbrough, Head of Payments & Commerce Product, Grab.

With Adyen supporting 250 payments methods around the world, Grab customers will be offered both traditional cards and, over time, country-specific payment methods, using Adyen’s expertise and data to expand payment options. Adyen supports a wide range of payment methods, from Tenpay to Alipay and native payment methods for countries like Indonesia and Malaysia.

Business travellers who work within the region can also easily tabulate their business ride spending with Grab through the Grab for Work portal, and companies can automatically pay for their employees’ rides through the use of corporate cards.

“Southeast Asia is a diverse and highly fragmented region and there is no one preferred method of payment. However, mobile penetration in the region remains high and drives several key trends including the rise of mobile payments and platforms as a service. Partnering with a fellow innovator and disruptor such as Grab, we are eager to empower commuters in Southeast Asia with the same convenience of hailing a ride seamlessly as paying for their Grab ride with equal ease,” said Warren Hayashi, President, APAC, Adyen.

Adyen's other customers include next-generation companies such as Groupon, Airbnb, Booking.com,  Spotify, Facebook, and Evernote. Hayashi shared that Adyen is not targeting any particular geography or type of company, though there has been a lot of interest in Southeast Asia from existing global customers. "We're not boxing ourselves," he said. "We have a broad array of customers but typically they're enterprise, high-growth, want to expand, and using payments as a growth lever."

According to Hayashi, the traditional payments process can have a lot of hidden fees and complex structures involving many different parties, leading to redundancy in data, many points of failure, plus potential data loss at different stages. Adyen's payment simplifies the structure by subsuming technical gateways and risk managers under its platform. It is also transparent about its fees, he added.

The Grab announcement is in conjunction with Adyen’s growth momentum in the region as it expands its presence in Singapore with a new, bigger office. Adyen began operations from its new office in August 2016.

Interested?

Read the TechTrade Asia blog post about Adyen's new Singapore office