We’ve set up a new venture in next generation payments with Assembly Payments

Singapore, Melbourne – Standard Chartered and leading payments solution provider, Assembly Payments, have set up a new joint venture to deliver next generation payment solutions for the USD 29 trillion global e-commerce industry[1].

The new company will be headquartered in Singapore with the intent to grow the business globally, and will offer a sophisticated digital payment platform to manage transactions across multiple payment types and countries, including online, mobile and point-of-sale, digital wallets, debit and credit cards and real-time payments.

E-commerce is growing exponentially in emerging markets, as internet adoption increases among the growing middle-class population[2]. The new venture will roll out its payment services to global merchants, supporting their ambitions to scale and solving key challenges they face in managing risk, fraud, integration, reporting and reconciliation.

Commenting on Standard Chartered’s payments strategy, Michael Gorriz, Group Chief Information Officer of Standard Chartered, said: “Payments is a critical pillar of banking services. Enabling Real-time Faster Payments and high volume transactions has been a core area of investment for Standard Chartered in line with the evolving needs of clients, particularly with the growth of e-commerce platforms and wallet apps. Our venture with Assembly Payments complements these capabilities, giving our corporate clients a complete offering for high throughput inward and outward payments.”

Alex Manson, Head of SC Ventures, the innovation, fintech investment and ventures arm of Standard Chartered, said: “As the world moves towards platform-based e-commerce, the need for the next generation of tools to empower merchants and enable financial inclusion continues to grow. We identified payments as an area where we wanted to make a strategic investment. Assembly Payments shares our vision and we are pleased to partner them based on the strength of their core technology and talented team.”

Simon Lee, Co-CEO Assembly Payments, said: “This deal creates a once in a lifetime opportunity for Assembly. We have created a significant business in Australia and now, together with Standard Chartered, we are well placed to crack the international payments market and exponentially grow the business. We are also proud that this is one of the first major global fintech deals between a global bank and a major Australian fintech company.”

Assembly Payments is one of Australia’s fastest-growing fintech businesses. Named in Australia’s top ten startups for work by LinkedIn two years in a row, the startup has gone from strength to strength in pioneering payment innovation in Australia. Assembly has been working to capitalise on the demand for new payment solutions — brought on by the introduction of the country’s fast payment network, the New Payments Platform — in Australia and abroad.

Standard Chartered has actively been experimenting with new business models to meet the evolving needs of banking clients. In Hong Kong, it has established a strategic joint venture with PCCW, HKT and Ctrip Finance to deliver a new standalone digital retail bank in Hong Kong and has set up virtual banking partnerships in Taiwan and Korea. It has also set up a digital open platform, Solv, to help Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in India and other markets grow by providing a range of financial and business services.

[1] United Nations Conference on Trade and Development: Global e-Commerce sales surged to $29 trillion, 29 March 2019
[2] Knowledge@Wharton: Why Emerging Markets Are the Next E-commerce Frontier, 1 November 2017

For further information please contact:

Harrison Polites
The Media Accelerator (Assembly)
+61 409 623 618

Josephine Wong
Standard Chartered
+65 6596 4690

About Assembly Payments

Assembly Payments is a leading Australian payment innovator providing digital businesses with a comprehensive set of payment solutions to facilitate complex end-to-end payment workflows.

Since founding in Melbourne, Australia in 2013 Assembly has grown to employ over 130 staff, raised over $70 million AUD and has been named as one of LinkedIn’s top startups for work two years in a row.