Great Eastern will receive a 21.875% stake in the newly created holding company, with Axiata Digital Services holding the remaining stake
Axiata Digital wins $70m investment from Great Eastern. (Credit: Great Eastern Holdings Limited.)
Axiata Digital’s financial services (DFS) business, through its newly created holding company Boost Holdings, has received $70m investment from Great Eastern.
In exchange for the investment, Great Eastern will receive a 21.875% stake in the newly created holding company, with Axiata Digital Services holding the remaining stake.
The transaction is expected to be completed in the few months, subject to certain regulatory approvals.
Axiata Digital’s DFS business is comprised of Boost, an e-wallet and lifestyle app offering for customers in Malaysia; Boost Indonesia, Aspirasi, a micro-financing and micro-insurance provider; Trust Axiata Digital, a joint venture in Bangladesh; and Launchpad for digital financial services.
Axiata Digital to use proceeds to fund expansion plans
The company intends to use proceeds from to the investment to fund the expansion plans in Malaysia and the region.
The plans includes securing the next level push of Boost to develop its ecosystem of merchants and customers as well as improving Aspirasi’s credit scoring technology, and potentially housing the digital bank.
Axiata Digital said that the transaction is result of the increasing demand for digitisation, which is expected to grow after the Covid-19 crisis.
Axiata Digital CEO Mohd Khairil Abdullah said: “Over the past two years, we have been sharpening our focus on building and enhancing our digital financing services brand using digital technologies and our Telco assets to serve the underserved.
“With the investment from an esteemed partner like Great Eastern, we hope to further leverage emerging technologies to develop distinct financial and insurance innovations for our consumers at the bottom of the pyramid, as we continue on our journey to narrow the financial inclusion and protection gap in the country.”
Recently, Synqa, a Thailand-based fintech, has secured $80m in Series C funding round led by SCB 10X, a subsidiary of Siam Commercial Bank and SPARX, to develop cashless infrastructure in Asia.