PayU’s Red Dot Payment acquires Visa & Mastercard licenses in SE Asia

By Leandra Monteiro

PayU, the payments and FinTech business of Prosus, today announces that its controlled company Red Dot Payment, a South East Asia focused online payment solutions provider, has received direct acquiring licenses and connectivity to Visa and Mastercard.

The expansion of PayU’s offering in South East Asia with Red Dot Payment’s direct credit card acquiring license opens up new opportunities for merchants to offer card payments and process payments locally. New capabilities will be available to both domestic merchants expanding across borders and international merchants integrated with the PayU Hub, PayU’s global platform to process cross-border payments.

A direct connection to Visa and Mastercard will make it easier for merchants expanding their presence in South East Asia to process higher volumes of payments in currencies such as USD, SGD, JPY and EUR. In addition, they will also benefit from improved authorisation and acceptance rates. As the connection is made via a single API integration (PayU Hub), more data insights will be available for merchants to optimise processes and support further revenue streams.

Mario Shiliashki, CEO, Global Payments Organisation, PayU said, “At PayU, we are focused on providing our merchants with the tools and capabilities to expand across borders, particularly in high-growth markets like South East Asia where e-commerce has proven its socio-economic advantages. With these new acquiring capabilities of Red Dot Payments, we are helping global merchants reach even more consumers across the region.”

The average proportion of online transactions in South East Asia has increased from 52% in the pre-COVID period to 63% with the e-commerce market expected to reach $172 billion by 2025. This makes the region one of the final destinations for global e-commerce players aiming to accelerate their growth.

David Owyong, Chief Operating Officer at Red Dot Payment shared, “The Visa and Mastercard licenses are the next step in our journey to make payments and e-commerce more accessible. We believe that conquering e-commerce requires a global perspective and we pride ourselves on working closely with our merchants to help them harness the power of payments. As we overcome the turbulence of the past 18 months, we believe that the hospitality sector is the next industry where we’ll witness huge advances when it comes to e-commerce. We’re working to support local merchants in this field as well as create a secure environment for international companies with ambitions to serve consumers in South East Asia”