Grab, Southeast Asia's leading on-demand transport service, plans to expand into e-wallet and micro lending in Thailand to capitalise on the booming cashless society trend. In March, Grab announced the formation of Grab Financial Services Asia, a joint venture with Japanese financial services company Credit Saison, to provide loans and lending services to millions of unbanked and underbanked consumers, micro-entrepreneurs and small businesses across Southeast Asia. Grab Financial Services Asia will have the ability to tap into Grab's huge cache of customer data gathered from the Grab app, which processes more than a billion transactions annually, to provide a sophisticated, alternative resource for measuring credit ratings. By analysing behaviour and transaction data from the Grab app, including transport movements, geolocation and GrabPay transaction data, the company can offer alternative data points to assess creditworthiness. "We will expand more in transport, food delivery and the financial system," he said.

Source: Bangkok Post May 30, 2018 22:41 UTC