Paymob, an Egypt-based digital payments provider, is planning to use its fresh fundraise of $18.5 million from Egypt to enter the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia according to the media. This expansion at home is planned as the pandemic spurs a surge in cashless transactions.
Paymob provides mobile wallet products for banks and phone operators. It also helps to process the retail payments. The company is seeking to build on the 500 percent jump in monthly revenue that it witnessed in Egypt. When compared to the last year from this year’s biggest-ever Series A fund-raising by an Egyptian company led by UAE-based Global Venture.
Alain El Hajj, chief operating officer of Paymob said that the pandemic accelerated digital transformation amidst the consumers in Egypt. Even Paymob’s Kenyan, Pakistani and Palestinian markets have increasingly moved online. It is to note that the Dutch development bank, FMO and tech investment fund A15 contributed $15 million in total for the fund-raising.
Swvl LLC, LG and Samsonite International SA are among the 35,000 merchants Paymob holds. Before the outbreak of the coronavirus, the figure was only 1,000. The company claims to have processed over 85 percent of mobile wallet payments in Egypt and it also credits authorities’ moves to encourage digital banking as having boosted the business.
Additionally, the company has applied for a license in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and is currently in talks with officials. The Kingdom also plans non-cash transactions as a goal for its economic transformation. Saudi’s cashless payments have seen significant growth even before the onset of the pandemic and have eventually surged over the past year.