(26 August 2020 – Singapore) Gaming company Razer is exploring opportunities in Southeast Asia and other emerging markets including India and Latin America to grow its fintech business, as it awaits the outcome of its application for a digital full-bank licence in Singapore.
Razer Fintech generated $1.8 billion in total purchase value in the first half of the year, representing an increase of 114.3 percent year-on-year, and just shy of the $2.1 billion it achieved across the whole of 2019.
“This was driven by the onboarding of new merchants and surges in online shopping and digital entertainment consumption activities due to the COVID-19 lockdown,” said Razer in a recent statement.
Traditional banks “have taken decades to grow a business just in Southeast Asia, but with a digital bank, being more nimble, we want to build a global business and leverage the Razer Inc side of things as they grow alongside (the fintech business),” said Razer Fintech chief executive Lee Li Meng.
He noted that some regulators are also leaning towards more “bank-like regulations”, adding: “So we are already prepared from that perspective to put the right processes in place so that if we get the digital banking licence, we should be able to pivot very quickly from just being a digital payments business to running a digital banking platform.”