Under the Radar: What is Stripe’s take on the fragmentation of the APAC payments landscape?

Money Matters with Hongbin Jeong and Chua Tian Tian

Today we’re going to talk about a company whose mission is to increase the GDP of – not a country or city – but the internet.

Founded in 2010, our guest Stripe is a technology company that prides itself on building the economic infrastructure for the internet.

With dual headquarters in San Francisco and Dublin, and offices dotted across major financial hubs such as London, Tokyo and Singapore, the firm assists customers from the world’s largest enterprises to budding startups in accepting payments, growing their revenue and tapping new business opportunities.

That means its suite of products and services cuts across a number of functions, from pricing, billing, checkouts, payment links, revenue recognition, to invoicing and even marketplace solutions.

The firm said over 100 industry leaders process more than US$1 billion on its platform annually, while over US$817 billion in payments were processed by businesses on the platform in 2022. In Singapore specifically, the firm works with some of the fastest growing players including Grab and Carousell.

Now, why are we speaking to Stripe you might ask? Well, the internet or the digital economy is an interesting one to look at, with the digital economy in ASEAN alone widely tipped to grow to US$1 trillion by 2030.

But where are the opportunities within the broader APAC region? And more importantly, what are the complexities involved in capturing them given how fragmented the payment landscape is here? Not to throw in the cost of compliance as well?

Meanwhile, the Stripe is also seeing a number of developments of late. It had in April raised US$694.2 million in a tender offer, giving the fintech player a 30 per cent higher valuation amid the cooler funding climate. The move is said to allow employees to cash out their share compensation without an IPO. But is the firm ready for an IPO anytime soon?

Meanwhile, Stripe had also in July this year acquired its competitor Lemon Squeezy. But what was the rationale behind the move?

On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Paul Harapin, Chief Revenue Officer, Asia Pacific & Japan, Stripe.

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