Tech

Korean online payment service Kakao Pay surges nearly 114% on the first day of trading – TechCrunch


Shares in Kakao Pay, the fintech unit of South Korea’s largest messaging app operator Kakao Corp, closed up 114% in its market debut on Wednesday. 

The Ant Financial-backed company ended day one in every of buying and selling at $163.3 (193,000 gained), securing a market capitalization of $21.2 billion. 

Kakao Pay’s shares surged as excessive as $194.6 (230,000 gained) on the KOSPI, up 155.6% from the difficulty value of $76.2 (90,000 gained), the higher finish of its IPO vary. 

Kakao Pay raised $1.3 billion (1.53 trillion gained) at a $9.9 billion valuation, providing 17 million new shares in its preliminary public providing final week. 

The good points for Kakao Financial institution got here amid a crackdown on the nation’s tech corporations by South Korean regulators and politicians. In September, native lawmakers accused the nation’s huge tech corporations, together with Kakao Pay’s mother or father firm Kakao Corp, of monopoly points. The lawmakers even have expressed issues concerning the rising energy and valuation of tech corporations in Korea. 

Kakao Pay needed to delay its itemizing twice this summer season because the Monetary Supervisory Service (FSS) requested Kakao Pay to chop its share value and valuation. The corporate lowered about 6% of its focused IPO to $1.3 billion from $1.63 billion in July. 

Kakao Pay will use its IPO proceeds to hurry up its international growth, together with in Southeast Asia, Europe and China, mentioned CEO Alex Ryu at a web-based press convention final week. Southeast Asia and Center East-based corporations have been reaching out to the fintech firm to hunt strategic partnerships, Ryu talked about. It’ll put money into AI, cloud, robo-advisors and blockchain-powered fintech corporations in South Korea and abroad international locations after the itemizing, Ryu added.

“Kakao Pay is essentially a monetary platform, and we search to keep up symbiotic relationships of mutual progress with different monetary establishments,” mentioned Ryu. 

The corporate additionally plans to increase its offline fee infrastructure, function a Purchase Now Pay Later (BNPL) service, arrange a digital non-life insurance coverage subsidiary, and launch a cell buying and selling system (MTS).  

Kakao Pay, based in 2014, claims a complete of 36.5 million customers, with month-to-month lively customers at 20 million. The corporate’s complete transaction quantity recorded $72.4 billion for twelve months as of June, whereas its income elevated greater than 102% over the previous two years in the course of the pandemic. Kakao Pay recorded $6.9 million (8.2 billion gained) in EBITDA within the first half of 2021. 

Kakao Pay mentioned one in every of its differentiators is creating synergies with its sister corporations like Kakao messaging app, Kakao Financial institution, Kakao Mobility, and Kakao Video games. 

Kakao Mobility and Kako Leisure are additionally set to go public in 2022. 

Kakao Corp’s digital lender subsidiary Kakao Financial institution, which raised $2.3 billion through IPO in August, had a market cap of $23.9 billion (28 trillion gained) as of immediately. 



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