Indian digital payments company PayMate will invest $3 million to expand its operations in the GCC by 2021, according to local media reports.
In an interview with the Abu Dhabi-based The National, PayMate founder and CEO Ajay Adiseshann said that the investment will be made in the next 18 to 24 months, with the money going towards hiring new talent, data localisation efforts and the development of new business solutions for the region.
The firm has already opened an office in Dubai, which will begin operations in January.
“We will go live with six-to-seven big customers in the UAE that might also have cross-border requirements across the GCC,” Adiseshann was quoted as saying.
Next year, he added, the company will expand its operations to Saudi Arabia.
“Owing to its size, the kingdom holds even more potential than the UAE,” he said. “In the next couple of years, we will be present in all GCC countries and in some pockets of North Africa as well.”
Research from the London-based RBR predictrs the number of credit cards in the Middle East and Africa will skyrocket to 910 million by the end of 2021, compared to 611 million in 2015.
Eventually, the firm plans to expand internationally.
“Our last quarter was cash-positive…now we will be investing in global expansion but again we will be cash positive in the next six-to-eight months,” he said. “In the next couple of years, we expect the Middle East to contribute up to 35 percent to our overall revenues.”
PayMate processes transactions worth over $5 billion each year, and plans to reach between $8 and $10bn by the end of India’s financial year in March 2020.
In India, the company hopes to take advantage of an ongoing credit crisis.
“There is a yawning gap of credit in India, nearly $300bn and banks alone cannot fill that,” he said. “We see it as an opportunity to control payment flows, enhance digisitation and, on the back of this huge data, provide credit to both large and small businesses.”
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