Axiata Digital and Great Eastern Announce Strategic Investment and Deepen Collaboration in Fintech Services

As a Group committed to creating sustainable business value across all our markets, Axiata has been consistent in our pursuit to aggressively grow our digital ventures. I am particularly encouraged that this deal with Great Eastern demonstrates the hard and fast moves we made in the early days to invest in Digital Businesses have put us in a sweet spot today to ride the digital wave sweeping much of the nation and region as economies scale towards recovery.

Great Eastern is a close insurance partner of Aspirasi with a long-term commercial agreement signed in 2019. Today, we are very pleased to take the relationship to a new level in the next normal, with Great Eastern as our investor mutually aligned in our goal to rapidly expand Digital Financial Services across the region.

The cash injection is also a powerful testament in boosting investor confidence through what has been described as the largest foreign investment in Malaysian fintech. As companies seek to emerge from the current economic fallout, local businesses stand to gain from Great Eastern’s substantial investment into Axiata as we jointly create opportunities within the ecosystem, contributing towards the reignition of Malaysia’s economic recovery.

Over the past two years, we have been sharpening our focus on building and enhancing our digital financing services brand using digital technologies and our Telco assets to serve the underserved. Firstly, with Boost, which has grown to become a leading lifestyle cashless payment app which, in today’s COVID-19 world, is the safer way to transact, along with Aspirasi, our micro-financing and micro-insurance brand that supports MSMEs with simplified access to financing and insurance. With the investment from an esteemed partner like Great Eastern, we hope to further leverage emerging technologies to develop distinct financial and insurance innovations for consumers at the bottom of the pyramid, as we continue on our journey to narrow the financial inclusion and protection gap in the country.

This strategic investment will enable Great Eastern to participate in Axiata’s growing fintech expansion plans in the region. Axiata’s focus on providing financial services for the underserved, unbanked and under insured customer segment also resonates well with our business strategy. By leveraging on Axiata’s network and digital capabilities, and partnering with them, we want to grow our reach into new customer segments to provide for their financial needs and ultimately improve their lives. We are excited to have the opportunity to strengthen our collaboration to deliver more value to its growing customer base by providing our protection and insurance solutions for better financial security and peace of mind.