Grab may be preparing for another major move beyond ride-hailing and food delivery. The Southeast Asian technology giant is reportedly holding discussions to acquire a majority stake in Atome Financial, the Singapore-based company behind the popular buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) service Atome.
According to a Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the matter, the potential transaction could value Atome Financial at more than US$2 billion (approximately RM8.13 billion). Negotiations are reportedly still underway, however, which means there is currently no guarantee that an agreement will ultimately be reached.
If the deal does move forward, it could become another important piece of Grab's steadily expanding financial-services ecosystem.
What Exactly Is Atome?
Atome has become a familiar name among shoppers across Southeast Asia, particularly for consumers who prefer spreading the cost of purchases over several payments rather than paying everything upfront.
Its name is derived from "Available to Me," reflecting the platform's approach of making purchases more manageable through instalment-based financing. Customers can use Atome with participating merchants both online and at physical retail stores, paying for eligible purchases over an agreed repayment schedule.
The BNPL concept sits somewhere between traditional card payments and conventional consumer financing. Instead of applying for a traditional loan for relatively small purchases, eligible shoppers can divide the cost into smaller payments directly during checkout.
That simplicity has helped BNPL services gain considerable attention across the region, especially as online shopping, digital wallets and cashless payments have become increasingly embedded in everyday spending.
Atome has also been expanding beyond basic domestic instalment payments, including developing cross-border capabilities as consumers increasingly shop and travel throughout the region.
Behind the service is Atome Financial, which forms part of Singapore-based technology company Advance Intelligence Group. The broader group has attracted backing from major international investors, including SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Warburg Pincus.
Why Atome Could Make Sense for Grab
For Grab, the attraction is fairly easy to understand.
The company may have started life as a transportation platform, but it has evolved considerably since then. Today, Grab's ecosystem stretches across ride-hailing, food delivery, merchant services, digital payments and an expanding range of financial products.
Financial services are particularly valuable within a superapp because many of the ingredients are already there. Consumers use the platform, merchants accept payments through it, transactions generate data, and a digital wallet provides another connection between all of those activities.
Adding an established consumer-financing platform such as Atome could potentially deepen those relationships.
Instead of building every financing capability from scratch, an acquisition could give Grab access to Atome's existing users, merchant relationships, technology and regional presence while allowing the company to accelerate its push further into consumer credit.
There could also be opportunities to combine Atome's financing capabilities with Grab's existing merchant and payment ecosystem, although the exact structure of any integration remains purely speculative while discussions are still unconfirmed.
Grab Already Has Its Own PayLater Business
Of course, instalment payments are not entirely new territory for Grab.
In Malaysia, Grab already operates PayLater, allowing eligible customers to defer eligible payments until the following month or divide purchases into four monthly instalments.
That makes the reported interest in Atome particularly interesting. Rather than simply entering the BNPL market, Grab could potentially be looking at increasing the scale of a financial service it already understands.
An acquisition could therefore be less about introducing a completely new product and more about expanding Grab's reach, merchant network and financing capabilities across multiple Southeast Asian markets.
It could also raise questions about how Atome would eventually fit alongside Grab's existing PayLater offering. The two services could potentially remain separate, be gradually integrated, or serve different customer and merchant segments. Until an agreement is actually announced, however, those possibilities remain open.
Another Sign That Grab Is Willing to Buy Its Way Into New Markets
The Atome report also appears to fit into a broader pattern of acquisition activity from Grab.
In February, Grab announced an agreement to acquire US-based digital investing platform Stash Financial in a transaction carrying an enterprise value of approximately US$425 million. The move provided another avenue for Grab to expand its exposure to financial technology beyond its core Southeast Asian operations.
Then, in March, the company announced a roughly US$600 million deal involving Delivery Hero's foodpanda business in Taiwan, reinforcing Grab's willingness to use acquisitions when they can accelerate expansion.
Taken together, these deals suggest that Grab is increasingly prepared to look beyond purely organic growth. Building a new service internally can take years, particularly in regulated sectors such as finance where licences, risk systems, technology and customer acquisition all need to be developed.
Buying an established business can shorten that process considerably—assuming the price, regulatory environment and strategic fit make sense.
Financial Services Are Becoming an Important Part of the Superapp Model
There is also a bigger story here than Grab potentially buying another company.
Southeast Asia's large digital platforms are increasingly competing not only for rides, deliveries or e-commerce transactions but for a much broader relationship with consumers.
Payments sit at the centre of that relationship. Once people are comfortable paying through a platform, additional services such as instalment financing, insurance, lending, savings and investments can potentially follow.
For technology companies, that creates an opportunity to increase the number of services each customer uses without necessarily having to acquire an entirely new audience.
Atome would potentially strengthen that part of Grab's strategy by adding another established consumer-financing platform to an ecosystem that already processes huge numbers of everyday transactions.
The merchant side may be equally important. BNPL services are not simply financial products for consumers; they are also tools retailers can use to provide customers with more flexible ways of paying. That makes merchant relationships a valuable part of the equation.
A US$2 Billion Deal Would Still Be a Significant Commitment
Despite the potential strategic benefits, acquiring a controlling stake in a company valued above US$2 billion would represent a substantial investment.
Consumer lending and BNPL businesses also carry risks that are very different from operating ride-hailing or food-delivery platforms. Credit quality, repayment behaviour, fraud prevention, funding costs and regulatory requirements all become increasingly important as financing operations grow.
BNPL has also attracted greater regulatory attention around the world as governments and financial authorities examine issues including consumer affordability, responsible lending and transparency.
Any major expansion into this area therefore needs to balance growth against credit discipline and regulatory compliance.
For Grab, the value of Atome would ultimately depend not simply on the number of customers it could acquire, but on how effectively the platform could be integrated into its wider financial ecosystem while keeping those risks under control.
Nothing Has Been Finalised Yet
For now, the most important detail is that there is no confirmed acquisition.
The reported discussions could still change, the eventual stake could differ from what is currently being considered, or negotiations could end without a transaction taking place at all. There are also no confirmed details regarding how Atome would operate under Grab if a deal were completed.
Representatives from Grab, Atome Financial and parent company Advance Intelligence Group reportedly declined to comment to Bloomberg on the matter.
Until one of the companies makes an official announcement, the proposed acquisition should therefore be viewed as an ongoing negotiation rather than a completed deal.
Final Thoughts
A Grab-Atome combination would make plenty of strategic sense on paper. Grab already has millions of consumers and merchants interacting through its ecosystem, while Atome brings an established regional BNPL business focused specifically on flexible consumer financing.
Putting those pieces together could give Grab a faster route toward expanding its financial-services footprint while strengthening the role payments and credit play within its broader superapp.
More importantly, the reported talks illustrate just how far Grab has moved from its original identity as a ride-hailing company. Transportation and food delivery remain important parts of the business, but payments, lending, investing and other financial services are increasingly becoming part of the bigger picture.
Whether Atome ultimately becomes part of that picture will depend on how the negotiations develop. But if a deal valued at more than US$2 billion does materialise, it could become one of Grab's more significant steps yet toward building a much larger regional financial ecosystem.
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