Singapore payments fintech Nium lands investment from Visa
Nium, the Singapore-based cross border payments fintech formerly known as InstaReM, has landed an undisclosed sum in a funding round with Visa and Indonesia-based BRI Ventures.
The round, which also saw help involvement from existing investors, is likely to be worth between $75-$100 million, according to DealStreetAsia which revealed the fintech was raising roughly this amount in December.
The plan was to close the round in January 2020, after spending a large part of 2019 fundraising. Nium met Visa last year on its Fintech Fast Track programme for the Asia Pacific, giving it the opportunity to tap the card issuer giant’s vast network. 
“Working with fintechs like Nium is a key part of Visa’s strategy to enable payments for anyone, anywhere, on any network,” says Visa’s regional president for Asia Pacific Chris Clark.
Nium is Visa’s third investment in Southeast Asia, alongside ride-hailing apps Gojek and Grab. It’s also one of Southeast Asia’s most well-funded fintechs, and last closed a $41 million Series C round in March 2019 led by Temasek-backed Vertex Growth Fund.
The 2015-founded fintech had initially focused on remittances, but has since branched out to giving businesses access to 38 markets for sending, spending and receiving money.
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The fintech says it will use the fresh capital to “broaden reach” of its payment infrastructure
Last November, the fintech landed a deal PhillipBank, one of Cambodia’s fast-growing banking groups, to power its cross-border payments for clients across its network.
Nium already powers payments for four of the top ten Southeast Asian Banks. Its aim is to position itself as a dominant player in the institutional payments space in Southeast Asia.
As well as banks, Nium also directly serves small and medium enterprises (SMEs), fintechs, ecommerce platforms and travel companies. In Q1 of this year, it saw $2 billion worth of transactions flow through its platform.
The fintech says it will use the fresh capital to “broaden reach” of its payment infrastructure to tap more consumers, SMEs, large enterprises, banks and financial institutions.
According to DealStreetAsia, it is looking at one or two acquisitions this year to help its expansion into new markets across Europe, the US, India and the UK.
Due to the effect of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic on global spending, CEO and co-founder Prajit Nanu anticipates transaction volumes to soften by 10-15% in Q2.
It’s also likely that initial public offering (IPO) plans won’t happen until at least 2023 due to the current economic climate.
