Yoma Strategic tie-up extends online payment services in Myanmar

MAINBOARD-LISTED Yoma Strategic Holdings' Myanmar-based joint venture (JV), Wave Money, is giving its customers in Myanmar access to merchants of payments platform 2C2P through a tie-up.

Some 17 million users of Wave Money's app, WavePay, will be able to pay for purchases from 2C2P's merchants through their mobile phones without having a bank account, 2C2P said in a press statement on Tuesday.

The merchants include airlines and major retailers in Myanmar and South-east Asia.

2C2P, which is dual-headquartered in Singapore and Bangkok, told The Business Times it expects to roll out its service to WavePay users in the next couple of months.

Initially, WavePay users will be able to pay for ticket purchases on regional airlines. The service will be rolled out progressively to other merchants on the platform, said 2C2P.

Mobile financial services provider Wave Money is a JV of telco giant Telenor, Singapore sovereign wealth firm GIC-backed Yoma Bank, and Yoma Strategic Holdings.

Last week, Bloomberg reported that GIC and Norway's Norfund AS had bought a 30 per cent stake in Myanmar's Yoma Bank for 130 billion kyat (S$121.3 million).

Shares of Yoma Strategic were up S$0.005 or 1.6 per cent to S$0.315 as at 1.13pm on Tuesday.