Grab’s acquisition of Atome signals need for wider ecosystem play for standalone BNPL platforms

[SINGAPORE] Grab’s acquisition of 60 per cent of buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) platform Atome Financial for US$1.5 billion could signal that standalone digital financial services require a wider ecosystem play.

The sector had started out as a way to offer short-term financing to those without sufficient credit history, and was popular in emerging markets such as Indonesia and the Philippines.

In these markets, BNPL players charge interest on what the customer owes. The players also earn a fee from merchants for providing the service.

“(BNPL services are) particularly attractive to the unbanked populations in emerging markets where they may not have easy access to traditional products such as credit cards and cash loans,” said Wong Wanyi, fintech leader at PwC Singapore.

Companies, such as Kredivo and Akaluku in Indonesia and Billease in Philippines, grew from offering BNPL to offering cash loans to customers who would struggle to get loans from traditional banks.

However in 2023, regulators started clamping down on the daily interest rates BNPL players could charge. The Indonesian financial services regulator capped the maximum daily rate at 0.3 per cent for 2024, 0.2 per cent for 2025, and 0.1 per cent for 2026 and beyond.

These rules coupled with a higher interest-rate environment and costs of acquiring customers have placed pressure on BNPL companies.

“In the last decade, our observation is that around 20 per cent of BNPL service providers in the South-east Asian market have been struggling,” said Mohit Mehrotra, financial services industry leader at Deloitte Southeast Asia.

This impact was more keenly felt in Singapore, where players such as Hoolah were acquired by cashback platform ShopBack and eventually shuttered, and Australian platforms like Zip exited the market.

It is hard for BNPL players to dominate in a market such as Singapore where there is ready access to credit, said Anton Ruddenklau, head of financial services at KPMG in Singapore.

“The product is interesting but it’s not compelling for Singapore consumers,” he added.

Too large to ignore

The BNPL market in the Asia-Pacific is set to hit US$358.6 billion by 2030, a report by Research and Markets showed. Key markets in South-east Asia such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have grown significantly.

For BNPL players to thrive, they need a lower cost of capital and access to data to improve their credit underwriting.

Expanding access to underserved customers can introduce greater credit risk and potentially lead to higher defaults if underwriting and repayment controls fail to keep pace, noted PwC’s Wong.

“The challenge for providers is therefore not financial inclusion itself, but how to manage risk appropriately and sustain profitability while expanding their user base – it’s a delicate balancing act,” she added.

Deloitte’s Mehrotra noted that more data is needed to accurately underwrite a customer’s credit.

There is also a need for a wider distribution network beyond just offline stores, which is what BNPL players focused on during the boom years.

The consumer credit opportunity in the region still remains large, said Li Jianggan, founder of consultancy Momentum Works.

“What is changing is where that credit sits. Increasingly, it is being embedded within large consumer and commerce platforms, or within major payments and wallet ecosystems that already own distribution and transaction relationships with users.”

The opportunity to be part of an ecosystem is what Grab offers to Atome Financial. This transaction is a signal that a standalone BNPL model is getting harder to sustain at scale, he added.

This is necessary even as Atome Financial has shored up its balance sheet, securing multiple financing facilities in a number of banks. This includes an upsized US$345 million syndicated facility led by HSBC in January, and a US$48 million loan from Maya Bank in Philippines in September 2025.

The platform has been reporting positive financials. It reported an 80 per cent growth in 2025 revenue to US$470 million. Its operating income hit US$360 million in 2025, up 52 per cent from US$236 million in 2024.

The platform processed more than US$4 billion in gross merchandise value in 2025, a 60 per cent increase from US$2 billion in 2024.

Bigger platform, wider reach

The deal is mutually beneficial for Grab and Atome Financial. Grab has historically focused its lending on its drivers and merchants on the platform, with only 1 per cent of its 138 million annual transacting users taking out a loan from it.

Atome will fill the consumer gap for Grab with its established products, credit underwriting and regional merchant network, said Ben Lim, senior analyst at pvtIQ, Smartkarma’s private markets research arm.

“Grab contributes a large consumer ecosystem and rich transactional data (to Atome Financial),” he added.

These are two advantages that BNPL players will need.

Atome Financial is differentiated from its other competitors, owing to its broad South-east Asian footprint, compared with Indonesia-focused Kredivo and Akulaku, said Lim.

Its reliance on wholesale lending also puts it at a disadvantage compared with ecosystem-backed players, which have access to cheaper capital via deposits from their parent-owned digital banks.

For example, SPayLater, is a BNPL run by Sea’s financial services arm, Monee, which can tap onto MariBank in Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines.

“Joining Grab could help address both constraints by giving Atome access to a much larger user base, additional data and the broader resources of Grab’s financial services ecosystem,” said Lim.

In the BNPL sector in South-east Asia, standalone players may not end up being acquired, but the service is increasingly becoming a product within a broader consumer credit business, noted Momentum Work’s Li.

Consumer credit is also now increasingly clustered around large platforms such as e-commerce, or large payment and wallet ecosystems in the region.

“Independent players therefore need to build broader financial relationships with users, secure durable distribution of their own or become part of a larger ecosystem,” he added.