- The Grab Atome acquisition gives Grab 60% of the BNPL and lending group for US$1.49 billion in cash.
- BNPL users will see no immediate changes, with the first phase due to close by Q3 2027.
Grab Holdings has agreed to acquire a 60% stake in Atome Financial, a Singapore-based buy now, pay later (BNPL) and consumer lending platform, for US$1.49 billion, the companies said in a joint statement on September 15, 2026.
The deal would bring Atome, which operates in five Southeast Asian markets, under the same owner as Grab PayLater, the ride-hailing and delivery company’s own instalment service. Shoppers using either service will not see changes yet, as the first phase still needs regulatory approval and is not expected to close until the third quarter of 2027.
If completed, the acquisition would combine Atome’s BNPL loans, consumer cash loans, BNPL cards and digital lending with Grab’s financial services business, which already includes payments, digital banks, partner lending, insurance and consumer lending, the statement said.
Grab’s shares ended 3.64% down on Nasdaq after the announcement, CNBC reported. According to AskTraders, the stock closed at US$2.91, down about 40% this year and near its 52-week low.
What is Atome, and how does BNPL work?
BNPL lets shoppers split a purchase into smaller instalments over several weeks or months instead of paying the full amount at checkout. The BNPL provider pays the merchant upfront and then collects the instalments from the shopper. Many plans charge no interest if each payment is made on time, while missed payments can attract late fees.
Atome Financial is the digital financial services arm of Advance Intelligence Group, whose investors include SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Warburg Pincus, Ares and EDBI, according to the statement. Besides the Atome BNPL app, the group owns Kredit Pintar, which the statement describes as Indonesia’s leading digital lender.
Atome operates in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, and holds a minority stake in a joint venture in Thailand. The company says it has 25 million cumulative transacted users and more than 30,000 partner brands. The statement notes that the user figure comes from Atome’s management accounts, which have not been reviewed or audited. Atome’s gross loan portfolio stood at US$1 billion as of June 30, 2026, also on an unaudited basis.
Jefferson Chen, who is CEO of Atome Financial and chairman and CEO of Advance Intelligence Group, said the company was founded eight years ago to offer credit to people without a conventional banking history. “Powered by AI and data, every transaction makes our underwriting smarter and our products more personalised,” he said.
How Grab’s Atome acquisition is structured
The deal is split into two phases. In the first, Grab pays US$1.49 billion in cash for 60% of Atome. Of that sum, US$260 million is primary growth capital, which means the money goes into Atome to fund its growth rather than to the selling shareholders.
Once the first phase closes, Grab will consolidate Atome into its Financial Services segment, and Atome’s existing management team will continue running the business, the statement said.
In the second phase, Grab has agreed to buy the remaining 40% from Advance Intelligence Group and other sellers about two years after the first phase closes. The price is not fixed and will be calculated from Atome’s results in the six months before the second closing, using 13 times annualised adjusted EBITDA, weighted at 75%, and 2.5 times annualised revenue, weighted at 25%.
The resulting equity valuation is subject to a floor of US$2 billion and a cap of US$4.5 billion, and at least half of the payment will be made in cash. In practice, the price rises if Atome grows its earnings and revenue, while the floor and cap set the lowest and highest valuations Grab will pay.
Grab chief financial officer Peter Oey told CNBC that the two-stage structure was designed in part to “de-risk” the transaction from a capital allocation standpoint.
Why Grab chose to buy rather than build
Grab has offered instalment payments since 2019 by first introducing an interest-free instalment product through a joint venture with Japanese credit card company Credit Saison. Grab president and chief operating officer Alex Hungate told Reuters that Grab has built BNPL products in Malaysia and Singapore, and buying Atome would speed up its expansion into the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand.
Hungate said the acquisition lets Grab concentrate on scaling instead of spending years building credit models and absorbing the losses usually involved in refining them. He added that Grab’s three digital banks could help reduce the cost of funding Atome’s assets. The three banks are GXS Bank in Singapore, GXBank in Malaysia and Superbank in Indonesia.
In the statement, Oey said taking over an established lender and merchant base would be faster and cheaper for Grab than building its own. “The transaction is funded entirely from our existing cash, is expected to be accretive to Group Adjusted EBITDA upon completion, and does not affect our ongoing share repurchase program,” he said.
Oey also told CNBC that Atome’s partnerships with brands in travel, beauty and e-commerce would give Grab reach into segments where it is less established.
Grab expects its Financial Services segment, including Atome, to generate US$500 million in adjusted EBITDA and hold a gross loan portfolio of more than US$6 billion by 2028. It also raised its group 2028 targets to US$1.7 billion in adjusted EBITDA and more than 30% compound annual revenue growth between 2025 and 2028.
A larger loan book also means more exposure to borrowers who fall behind on repayments. Grab also reported net impairment losses on financial assets climbed 81% to US$120 million in the first half of 2026, up from US$66 million a year earlier, mainly because loan-loss provisions rose as its loan portfolio grew. Impairment losses are the amounts a lender sets aside to cover loans it does not expect to be repaid.
Atome is not Grab’s only recent financial services purchase. According to a Grab filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Grab signed agreements to buy all of US digital financial services firm Stash Financial, paying for a 50.1% interest at an enterprise value of US$425 million.
What changes for BNPL users
The companies said that once the deal is completed, the combination would bring more flexible payment options to Grab’s nearly 54 million monthly transacting users and create cross-selling opportunities for Grab within Atome’s merchant network.
The statement said Atome’s AI-powered lending infrastructure would be paired with Grab’s “ecosystem insights” to strengthen credit risk assessment, which the companies said would widen access to credit while helping to prevent consumer over-indebtedness. The statement did not specify what data this would involve.
Grab and Atome said they plan to share risk management insights, regulatory practices and collection strategies to combat platform fraud and improve underwriting. The statement added that the deal does not change either company’s obligations on licensing, consumer protection, data privacy and responsible lending in each market.
Hungate cited Grab’s lending to its own drivers as evidence of demand for credit outside the banking system. “In 2025, 68% of driver-partner borrowers accessed formal credit for the first time through Grab, with half noting they did so to avoid predatory lenders,” he said in the statement. The companies, citing a Temasek report, said more than 70% of adults in Southeast Asia are unbanked or underbanked.
BNPL rules are tightening across the region
The deal comes as regulators in Atome’s key markets increase oversight of BNPL.
In Malaysia, the Consumer Credit Act 2025 was gazetted on December 31, 2025, and came into force on March 1, 2026, requiring BNPL companies to be licensed by the Consumer Credit Commission. Deputy finance minister Liew Chin Tong said in March that people aged 30 and below account for around 40% of BNPL transactions in Malaysia. He added that although BNPL is a small part of household debt, younger consumers’ fast uptake, including for daily necessities, points to deeper wage pressures and is a concern.
Licensing for credit providers started on June 1, 2026, with a six-month transition period, Liew said. According to Malay Mail, the commission’s conduct standards require BNPL providers to check affordability for credit limits above RM1,000, and late payment charges may only cover providers’ actual costs.
In Indonesia, the Financial Services Authority (OJK) has tightened eligibility for BNPL offered by financing companies. Fintech News Indonesia reported that rules effective July 1, 2026, require borrowers to be at least 18 or married, with a verified average gross monthly income of at least Rp3 million. A borrower’s total BNPL repayments are capped at 40% of monthly income in 2027 and 2028, falling to 30% from 2029. The rules follow a rise in bad debt, with non-performing financing in the paylater segment reaching 3.44% in May 2026, up from 2.99% in April.
Singapore has no BNPL law, and providers instead follow a voluntary code of conduct drawn up in October 2022 by the Singapore FinTech Association and industry players with guidance from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). MAS has said BNPL made up less than 2% of the value of total credit and debit card payments in the first half of 2025.
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