Razer Merchant Services (RMS), the B2B arm of Razer Fintech , has partnered with Atome , an Asia-based Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) service, to enable flexible deferred payment acceptance during checkout at online and offline RMS merchants. Starbucks is among the first RMS merchants to pioneer Atome’s flexible payment method through this partnership.

Through this partnership between RMS and Atome, customers of Starbucks and other B2C merchants with BNPL enabled can benefit from flexible deferred payments, making their products more attainable. Through the partnership between Atome and RMS, both companies aim to continue supporting merchants by offering a flexible, secure, and seamless experience to their customers. To pay, users first have to download Atome’s app and register an account, before selecting Atome as the checkout payment option.

Razer Fintech is one of the largest O2O (offline to online) digital payment networks in emerging markets. Its B2B (business-to-business) arm, RMS, encompasses RMS Online, a card processing gateway supporting global scheme cards and over 110 payment methods; and RMS Offline, an offline payment network of over 1 million physical acceptance points across SEA. Atome’s and RMS’ recent partnerships Partnering with card networks, tech companies, and fintechs is one of the simple ways banks and credit unions can get new digital services.

The payments landscape evolves at a rapid pace. This shift toward card-not-present commerce has opened businesses to an elevated risk of card fraud and chargebacks. In the payments industry, a partner will assess the current climate, the oncoming trends, and the advantages and disadvantages of different gateways and the scope of work required for each.

Collaborating with other fintechs remains the factor that allows companies to move faster. The right types of fintech partnerships create opportunities to meet the demands of our joint end users. Since the beginning of 2022, both Atome and RMS have signed some partnership agreements that could benefit both themselves and their users.

Atome has teamed up with digital travel platform Agoda, helping travellers to pay for their domestic travel accommodations in three zero-interest payments; and, most recently, with payments processor PayMongo, offering API integration with retail websites or apps. RMS, on the other hand, has become an acquirer for Discover Global Network to enable card acceptance at online merchants in Malaysia. Besides, it has integrated Alipay+ for online and offline merchant touchpoints across Malaysia.

Defining Asia’s BNPL space Asia is highly fragmented, with a large unbanked and underbanked population, especially in emerging markets such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. In the Asean bloc, there are an estimated 290 million unbanked adults. Jeremy Wong, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Atome, explained that SEA is also leading the change in digital consumption, having added 60 million new digital consumers to the Internet economy since the pandemic started.

Retailers partner with BNPL platforms to tap on these young and emerging digital consumers. Despite the recent surge in mergers and acquisitions as well as seemingly strong early investor interest, the BNPL industry in Asia Pacific still faces an uphill task in gaining traction and turning a profit. In 2021, for example, BNPL made up 3% of payment methods used in ecommerce, compared to 10% for credit cards.

Malaysia has a 4% BNPL share in ecommerce against 42% for credit cards. The Philippines is at 2% against 16% for credit cards. BNPL represented 4% of Singapore ecommerce payment volume, compared to 42% for credit cards.

To find out more about Atome, check out their profile in our company data base. .