Has Asia Got a Leader in the Business of Digitising Cash? This Company says They are the Ones Matchmove doesn't count itself as a wallet but an open loop card that provides inter-operability
By Aashika Jain
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Back in 2009, Matchmove Pay's challenge was consumers' inability to pay online. Having started solving the issue for online entertainment consumption, the founder Shailesh Naik soon understood the potential the fintech market had. In 2014, Matchmove Pay was set up to enable instant payments within any app.
Today the Singapore-based Matchmove enables companies to offer fully branded secure mobile wallet solution including services such as payment cards, cross-border money transfers, and credit scoring. Matchmove is different from the normal e-wallets owing to it being in the B2B space. The company counts its platform from just being a closed loop wallet to something that could be used anywhere.
"You can be a finance company, an airline, bank, logistics' company, an e-commerce company or a retail company; you want your users to pay by card and they don't have a card today give them their own branded card," Nitin Palande, Senior VP of Sales at Matchmove told Entrepreneur Asia Pacific.
According to Palande, Matchmove's concentration on helping people spend, send and lend is where the growth lies. "So instead of you chasing loans, loans chase you," Palande said.
Matchmove counts India as its biggest market in terms of revenue and number of customers. The company is looking at expanding across South East Asia, Middle East Asia and South Africa. It already operates in Latin America in Miami.
"Wherever markets are developing or emerging and where there are lots who are un-banked, un-carded, we see great hunting grounds for us," Palande said.
The company sees itself as the sole leader in terms of fintech services in the Asia region. "We can't count more than one competitor in the B2B space," Palande said.
India Strategy
To steer the company's India business, Matchmove recently appointed Kumar Srinivasan as the CEO of Matchmove India. Kumar, who was the Chief Operating Officer at India-focussed mobile messaging service Hike, has almost 20 years of experience in the United States, India and Southeast Asia.
In a conversation with Entrepreneur Asia Pacific, Kumar said he finds India a big opportunity for the company keeping the consumers in mind.
"I think in India that there is very different market because mostly what we see is B2C businesses, comparing three verticals. The way we think about it is as spend, send and lend. We are becoming platform for any of these clients. So when someone is actually building lending product, we actually provide the platform," Kumar said.
The company works with network providers such as RuPay in India and MasterCard across South East Asia or Visa and can insert instant payment within any app.
Palande thinks India has a long way to go in terms of what payments can do and there is much innovation to come in what companies in the B2B space.
Today you want acceptance. You want to show that your methods of payment are always going to be accepted. You want simplicity. You want your payments to be convenient. Most importantly, you want it frictionless and not overly complex. You want security and speed in your payments. With this true, I think we are just rightly positioned," Palande said.
