The two digital payments and merchant commerce platforms have partnered to expand cashless payment solutions to offline SMEs and enterprises to accelerate digitization and growth post-Covid-19.
As part of the partnership, Fave’s QR code will become interoperable and integrated with Pine Lab’s terminals, and Fave’s merchant payment acceptance and loyalty cashback solutions will expand into both debit and credit cards platforms via Pine Labs payment terminals.
Fave and Pine Labs have «strong synergies in building digital platforms for merchants to grow digitally providing safe and trustable payment and loyalty solutions,» the announcement said.
Over 50,000 of Fave and Pine Labs merchants in Southeast Asia will benefit from the partnership with the collaboration aiming to scale and grow more businesses digitally in the coming months, the announcement said.
Digital Surge
Fave cited Mastercard data that shows a «notable decrease» in cash usage since the start of the pandemic, with the Asia Pacific region leading the surge in digital payments, with 91 percent of users saying they have adopted tap-and-go payments.
«With digitalization playing an increasingly critical role in the recovery of Southeast Asia’s economy, merchants recognize that they need to accelerate the development of digital solutions to ensure they remain competitive,» Joel Neoh, Fave co-founder and CEO, said about the partnership.
Merchant Super-App
The investment follows Fave's raise of $20 million in Series B funds in September 2018 from existing investors Sequoia Capital India, SIG Asia Investments and venture capital firm Ventura Capital, which is backed by Indonesia's Lippo Group.
Fave distributes coupons for the merchants while rewarding customers with cashback. After its launch in 2017, Fave acquired the Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia units of Groupon. Last year, it moved into the fringes of financial services, with a pilot project to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) obtain micro-loans from financial institutions.
Pine Labs processes payments of $30 billion per year and serves some 150,000 merchants across about 450,000 network points in Asia. Its key investors include Sequoia India, Mastercard, Actis Capital, Temasek, PayPal and Sofina.
