Kasikornbank To Offer Nium’s FinTech Payments Platform

FinTech payments platform Nium, based in Singapore, is expanding its global reach to service Kasikornbank’s Asia-Pacific customers in Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

In a joint statement, the two companies said the move is part of an effort by Kasikornbank (KBank) to ramp up its “digital cross-border payments offerings” as social distancing measures become the new normal. The new routes will be supported by Nium’s real-time payment capabilities, according to the announcement.

As previously reported in this space, FinTech startup Nium’s latest round of funding, whose size was not disclosed, was led by new investors Visa and BRI Ventures. Nium, formerly known as InstaReM, has closed four funding rounds totaling $59 million since it was founded in 2014.

Silawat Santivisat, KBank senior executive vice president, said the funds transfer service is meant to address the challenges of the “new normal” brought on by the COVID-19 crisis.

“While social distancing is still required, transactions via mobile applications are the perfect option as people can conduct their transactions at home or anywhere else, anytime, without having to head to the nearest bank branch,” Santivisat said. He said fees for the cross-border payments service would be “inexpensive” and that recipients would “get the full amount of funds with no documents required. Funds transfer can be made in 12 currencies to 30 countries worldwide,” he added.

“Nium looks to create a fintech infrastructure that can help banks and financial institutions launch and scale innovative digital financial services without the complexity, time and cost previously required to do so,” said Rohit Bammi, Nium’s global head of institutional business. “We look forward to further working closely with KBank to provide an even better payments experience to their customers,” said Bammi.

Nium said its latest round of funding would help it build would help it to build out its payment infrastructure to reach more households, financial institutions and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).