Standard Chartered to invest $500m in Asia’s largest BNPL platform Atome

Standard Chartered has signed a 10-year strategic partnership with Singapore-based fintech Atome Financial as it looks to tap into the burgeoning buy now, pay later (BNPL) market in Asia.

Atome is Asia’s largest BNPL platform

The bank will put up $500 million in financing to enable Atome, which operates Asia’s largest BNPL platform, to scale and grow its customer base.

The firm says the deal is one of its largest fintech investments to date.

Through the new partnership, Standard Chartered and Atome plan to deliver personal banking solutions across Asia, with the goal to reach over 16 million Southeast Asian customers by 2025 and capture a substantial share of the digital lending market.

The partnership will initially focus on rolling out BNPL services in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam over the next few months, before incorporating digital lending products.

Atome’s parent company, Advance Intelligence Group, recently secured more than $400 million in a Series D fundraise led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 and Warburg Pincus, which valued the company at more than $2 billion.

Standard Chartered consumer, private and business banking CEO Judy Hsu says the partnership “will allow us to reach even more customers and drive greater financial participation of those underserved and underbanked”.

Atome CEO Jefferson Chen adds the partnership with Standard Chartered will accelerate broader financial inclusion across both developed and emerging markets in Asia.