Grab Financial expands offerings to empower small businesses in SE Asia

Grab Financial Group announced the expansion of its ‘Grow with Grab’ suite of products and features to empower small and medium businesses (SMBs) across Southeast Asia, a region with an e-commerce opportunity valued at $172 billion in 2025.

In a statement, the financial arm of Southeast Asian ride-hailing and food delivery major Grab said it has expanded its “Grow with Grab” initiative by scaling up GrabMerchant Commerce, a webstore builder platform that enables small businesses to scale by offering support in areas such as marketing and brand development.

The platform also offers advanced operations such as automation, CRM, inventory, and logistics. Best-practice sharing among the growing GrabMerchant Commerce community with advice from e-commerce specialists also accelerates growth for merchants.

GrabMerchant Commmerce was launched in May in Singapore and already has 500 signed-up merchants. These merchants, according to Grab Financial, have averaged a 6X increase in sales from when they first started their online businesses.

By the end of October 2021, selected GrabMerchant Commerce merchant-partners can be accessed via the ‘Shopping’ icon in the Grab app, giving them exposure to millions of Grab users across Southeast Asia. GrabMerchant Commerce will be rolled out to Malaysia and the Philippines in 2022.

Grab Financial also accelerated GrabPay and PayLater (Grab’s BNPL product) acceptance by Southeast Asian SMBs via establishing new partnerships with regional and local payment gateways, including 2C2P, AsiaPay, and Razer Merchant Services.

According to the announcement, the acceleration enables merchants to offer their consumers more payment methods.

“We are enabling more of our customers who love using GrabPay and PayLater to use both within and outside of the Grab app. The same safe, convenient, and rewarding experience is now available on many leading e-commerce sites across Southeast Asia,” said Reuben Lai, Senior Managing Director, Grab Financial Group.

Southeast Asia is the world’s fastest-growing region for mobile wallets driven by the e-commerce boom, according to reports cited by Grab Financial.