Axiata Digital’s Fintech division Boost is reportedly planning to expand its products and services while strengthening its regional presence. The firm announced these plans after a year of steady growth in revenues and product innovation.
Boost reveals that its client base increased to more than 9.6 million and has managed to almost double its merchant base to more than 438,000 touchpoints (by the end of last year).
Boost’s management confirmed that they will now be focused on the expansion of their Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) products by leveraging their large user base, fast-growing merchant network, settlement and payment infrastructure, and also their digital underwriting and collection capabilities.
Boost further noted that it will be expanding its B2B platforms with the aim to support SMEs to participate more actively in the digital economy.
Recently, Boost introduced a food delivery platform, known as Boost Makan, and is currently working on establishing a platform for small businesses to source raw materials at affordable rates.
Focus will also reportedly be placed on improving the overall functionalities and capabilities of the company’s merchant app to allow merchants to review analytics and insights to scale their businesses.
Boost also mentioned that it plans to reinvest in its clients in 2022 and beyond.
The most recent project was a refresh/update of BoostUP, which is its loyalty program based on core principles – boosting intrinsic value of the loyalty program through expansive rewards, a transparent earning structure, and supporting a simpler tier up system.
A significant part of Boost’s efforts will be to replicate its playbook in other markets, with South Asia and particularly Bangladesh serving as key opportunities.
With Indonesia being an important growth market, Boost confirms that it finalized a 68.75% equity acquisition in an Indonesian licensed business entity, PT Creative Mobile Adventure in May of last year.
PT Creative Mobile Adventure does business as a telco supply chain model financing company under the KIMO brand.
Notably, Boost Indonesia has grown 5X YoY during the COVID-19 crisis and has disbursed more than IDR 250 billion per month.
Sheyantha Abeykoon, CEO at Boost, stated:
“Today, we have presented a strong proposition as a fintech provider coupled with extensive experience as a scale lender with an eWallet business and a profitable cross border payments business. If our digital bank license bid is successful, it will take our fintech business to the next level, completing our ambition of becoming a full-spectrum fintech player to create an inclusive digital ecosystem for consumers and merchants across the region,”
Axiata and RHB established a consortium in order to apply for a virtual bank permit from Bank Negara Malaysia.
As equity partners in the consortium, Boost will reportedly maintain a majority stake of 60%, meanwhile, RHB will keep the outstanding 40% in the bank.