Razorpay bolsters Southeast Asia bet with Singapore foray

Bengaluru: Fintech firm Razorpay  has announced its expansion into Singapore, its second market in Southeast Asia after Malaysia.

The company plans to replicate its success in Singapore after local businesses in Malaysia experienced faster settlements and reduced transaction costs, according to its statement on Thursday. Razorpay will work closely with banks, financial institutions, and regulatory bodies to ensure seamless integration and compliance with Singapore’s financial landscape.

Businesses in Singapore can now access Razorpay Singapore’s suite of services, including payment gateway, cross-border transaction solutions, and real-time financial analytics. It will also launch its international payment gateway Curlec in Singapore to strengthen its presence in the Southeast Asian markets.

Malaysia-based Curlec, which Razorpay acquired and launched in July 2023, is witnessing a 30% month-on-month growth, the company said.

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Razorpay expects the digital payments ecosystem in Southeast Asia to boom with transaction volumes projected to surpass $2 trillion by 2030. Singapore is expected to lead with a 97% digital payment penetration rate, driven by a strong push for cashless transactions. The value of cashless payments in the city state is expected to double to $180 billion by 2029, while its e-commerce market is projected to nearly double to $40 billion in the next three years, the company said.

“As one of the most advanced digital economies, Singapore is the ideal market for our next phase of growth in Southeast Asia,” Razorpay’s managing director and co-founder Shashank Kumar said in the statement. “With our proven expertise in dynamic markets like India and Malaysia, we’re committed to building a powerful payments infrastructure in Singapore—one that helps businesses expand effortlessly while we handle the complexities of financial operations.”

The company said it has launched a suit of payment solutions to empower businesses there to scale rapidly with real-time payments and reduce cross-border transaction fees by 30-40% to effectively navigate an increasingly competitive global market.

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Currently, businesses in Singapore pay about 4-6% per transaction on cross-border payments, hurting their scalability, according to Razorpay. Small businesses continue to struggle with fragmented payment systems that drive up transaction fees and limit access to real-time payments in other Asian markets, creating further barriers to widen reach, it said.

Razorpay’s payment technology platform for Singapore will provide real-time, multi-currency transactions.

Founded in 2014 by Kumar and Harshil Mathur, India-born and bred but US-incorporated Razorpay is also flipping back into India to eventually list in the public markets.

Razorpay has raised over $740 million from investors including Tiger Global, Peak XV Partners, Y Combinator, Lone Pine Capital, and Alkeon Capital. In FY24, its total income improved to ₹2,501 crore from ₹2,293 crore in the year prior, with nearly 75% of its revenue coming from its online payment gateway business. Net profit rose to ₹34 crore from ₹7 crore.

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