The online payment gateway sector has always been a tough nut to crack. It’s almost akin to the OS market of yore – dominated by huge players; better systems don’t necessarily equate to higher market share and the industry is bogged down by rampant bugs and the lurking danger of fraudulent activity. But as is the case with many technology companies based in the western hemisphere, Paypal – the dominant player in the market hasn’t quite figured out the elixir in the Asian market and the result is that many other dominant country-specific players have emerged in this region. China has Alipay, Malaysia has MOL and Singapore has eNETS.

SinaptIQ and 2C2P

2C2P, a startup under MDA’s iJam Scheme is now entering the Singapore space and has started with baby steps in the right direction by getting into partnership with UOB.

Aung Kway Moe, founder of 2C2P is an established entrepreneur in Thailand. He founded SinaptIQ in 2003 which expanded into three subsidaries of which one of them – Paysbuy was bought over for THB 85M by a Thailand Mobile operator, Total Access Communications (DTAC).

The other subsidaries of SinaptIQ – DCC and 2C2P focuses on different aspects of e-commerce. Dynamic currency converter (DCC), as the name suggests is a real-time application that gives users a choice of paying in Thai Baht or a foreign currency. Its transaction volume breached THB2.0b in Sept 2009 . 2C2P on the other hand focuses on providing Cybersource-esque services in Asia by mainly providing credit card processing, payment gateway solutions and dispute management services.

Established in 2007, 2C2P is a joint-venture between Douglas Abrams and Aung Kway Moe. When asked about why he chose Singapore as the destination to launch 2C2P, he mentioned that Singapore market is open to new transaction-based payment solutions and also sees larger access to funds here.

Singapore Payment Gateway market

In Singapore, the dominant players are Paypal, Worldpay and eNETS. eNETS – the homegrown payment gateway service co-owned by OCBC, DBS and UOB – allows payment through credit and debit cards. Though we are yet to see mass adoption of e-commerce by retailers in the SE-Asian region, Juniper Research estimates that the global transaction market will reach $587 billion by 2011, with much of the payment volume coming from Asia. Aung sees a tremendous opportunity to leverage here, and though he is expecting setbacks from the big players in this market, he is ready to launch 2C2P on a war footing.

Laurels

2C2P was a finalist in the Red Herring 100 Asia 2008 Awards for playing an “important role of technology in Asian economy and throughout the world.” They also won the “Nokia Calling All Innovators” competition in 2009.

Mobile payment solution

2C2P are also entering into the mobile payment market and they claim the solution “is like Square without the device” which to simply put, is like any other mobile solution in the market. Their mobile payment solution will be launched in Thailand on Feb 15th for which they have already acquired a partnership with Amway and they are hoping they can launch it in Singapore by the end of Q2 2010.

With a plethora of mobile payments solutions, e-commerce payment solutions and a variety of players in the value chain, it will definitely be an uphill task for 2C2P to break the mould. Though the solutions they provide are not path-breaking or revolutionary through any lens, it will definitely be great to see more players in this field.

Update: They are also listed as one of the finalists in the Red Herring 2009 Global Awards.

Via E27