SG’s InstaRem partners ASX-listed Goldfield Money in Australian push

By Shiwen Yap for DealStreet Asia

Singapore-headquartered fintech company InstaReM has partnered ASX-listed Goldfield Money to provide digital banking services for migrants and overseas-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Asia.

The two firms have entered into an MoU that will see Goldfield Money provide financial services products to InstaReM.

According to a media release, in a period of 18 months following their entry into the Australian market, InstaRem has grown to become one of the largest international remittance providers in the business and retail space.

The partners will develop and market a cross-border banking application for SMEs and consumer segments.

InstaReM co-founder and chief executive officer Prajit Nanu said,  “Our proposition with Goldfields Money will enable SMEs to seamlessly trade across markets and expand beyond their home markets without really worrying about basic banking services. “Such a seamless proposition is only available for Fortune 500 companies through their global banks, but now we are enabling it for SMEs in Asia,” he adds.

On how neobanks and other digital banking solutions were expected to impact the ASEAN market, Nanu told DEALSTREETASIA, “Unlike Europe which is an easier market to serve as one license enables you to access 30+ countries, Asia is very complex. Each country has different regulatory and payment processes.”

He adds, “There are some Neo Banks being built in Asia for e.g. NEAT in HK, Yolo Pay in Singapore some large ones in China but they are restricted to growth one country at a time.  Our SME digital bank will break these barriers due to our licensing and location presence.”

“Instead of building our own Neo Bank platform which will have a high customer acquisition cost (CAC) we are in discussions with banks in the region to use our tech and remittance platform and capture markets where they didn’t have too much of customer base for e.g.Migrant workers in Thailand who send remittance but need basic banking services,” he further adds.

InstaRem’s growth & exit plans

InstaRem secured a $5 million Series A investment from Vertex Ventures in March 2016. In an email interview with DEALSTREETASIA, Nanu said: “Since our Series A funding we have grown 7x in volumes and have become operational in number of corridors including Europe.” He added, “By the end of Q3, InstaReM will be operational in US, Europe and few other markets in Asia with the ability to send local payments to 50+ countries. Our B2B business is seeing tremendous growth, we have number of financial institutions who use our platform for making low-value high volume payments.”

In an interview with this portal last year, Nanu had explained that they were targeting transaction volume of $100 million a month by March 2017. Asked about this growth target, he remarks: “We are on a path to double the number by end of 2017.We believe we should profitable by H2 2018 based on our current projections.  Based on this we would look at an IPO in 2020.”

Read more at: http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/singapore-instarem-partners-asx-listed-69955/