Blockchain Mobile Payments Scheme, Coins, Gets Backing From Some Big Names

Coins, Southeast Asia’s leading blockchain-enabled mobile payments platform, announced the closing of a $5 million fundraiser led by Naspers, bringing the total amount raised in its Series A to over $9.4 million.

According to Finextra, Coins enables anyone — including those without a bank account — to access a range of financial services from their mobile phone, including remittances, airtime top-ups, eCommerce and P2P payments. To date, the company has signed up over one million customers.

Coins operates primarily in the Philippines and Thailand and plans to expand to other markets where access to traditional financial services is either limited or prohibitively expensive.

“Coins has done an excellent job of providing consumers with easy, cost-effective access to core financial services,” said James Caviness. “With its secure, scalable platform, built on exciting and potentially disruptive blockchain technology, we expect Coins to continue to grow and expand across Southeast Asia.”

This new investment will allow the company to continue to boost its regional growth and allow it to establish additional cash-based services and partnerships.

“Coins has become a key component of our customers’ everyday lives, allowing them to do everything from sending payments to shopping online,” said Ron Hose, CEO of Coins. “With Naspers Ventures, we’ve gained a great partner in our mission to democratize financial services by making them easily accessible and usable by anyone. We are extremely excited to be working together with them to build a more financially inclusive future.”

The company also announced the appointment of James Caviness, vice president and chief product officer of Naspers business PayU, as a new board member.