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The
partnership, which will give Grab access to 50 million existing
customers in Indonesia, is Grab's first step to launching mobile
payment solutions more widely across Southeast Asia, it said in
a statement.
"Grab's partnership with the Lippo Group to develop a universal
payments platform will be a leap forward for e-money in
Indonesia," said Anthony Tan, a Harvard Business School graduate
who co-founded Grab in 2012.
Customers will be able to use the Grab app to make payments
across Lippo's retailers, including its department stores,
cinemas and e-commerce site.
Lippo director John Riady told Reuters last year that the
Indonesian media-to-property conglomerate planned to launch
payment, chat and other online services in 2016. (http://reut.rs/29XSdBU)
Starting as a taxi-hailing app in 2012, Grab has since expanded
to private cars and motorbikes. It currently has 320,000 drivers
in Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and
Vietnam.
So far, Grab has raised a total of around $700 million from
investors including Chinese sovereign wealth fund China
Investment Corporation [CIC.UL], Japan's SoftBank and an arm of
Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings [TEM.UL].
Tan told reporters earlier this week that Grab still has a
"significant" amount of capital left.
(Reporting by Eveline Danubrata; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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