Grab to Acquire 60% of Atome Financial for $1.49 Billion in Southeast Asia BNPL Push

September 17, 2026 • FinTech News

Grab has agreed to acquire a 60% stake in Atome Financial for $1.49 billion in cash, deepening the Singapore-based superapp’s push into consumer lending across Southeast Asia.

The deal, announced on September 15, 2026, will combine Atome’s buy now, pay later (BNPL) loans, consumer cash loans, BNPL cards, and digital lending business with Grab’s existing financial-services operations. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2027, subject to regulatory approvals and other closing conditions.

Grab has also agreed to acquire the remaining 40% of Atome Financial about two years after the first transaction closes. That second purchase will use a performance-linked valuation framework that puts Atome’s equity value between $2 billion and $4.5 billion.

Grab Expands Its Consumer Lending Business

The acquisition gives Grab a much larger lending platform without having to build the entire operation itself.

Atome Financial operates across Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand, all markets where Grab already has a presence. Atome has served 25 million cumulative transacted users and had a gross loan portfolio of about $1 billion as of June 30, 2026. It also works with more than 30,000 brands.

Grab, meanwhile, has nearly 54 million monthly transacting users across its ecosystem.

The companies expect the combination to create more opportunities to offer lending products to Grab users while giving Atome access to Grab’s large customer base, merchants, and driver and delivery-partner ecosystem.

For Grab, the logic is relatively direct: Atome already has the lending products, credit infrastructure, and merchant relationships. Grab can add those capabilities to its payments, digital banking, insurance, and existing lending businesses.

Atome Brings AI-Powered Credit Infrastructure

One of the more important parts of the transaction is Atome’s use of AI and data in digital lending.

Grab says Atome uses AI-powered underwriting to assess borrowers and manage credit risk. By combining that infrastructure with information generated through Grab’s broader ecosystem, the company expects to strengthen its own credit decisioning capabilities.

The companies believe this could help them expand access to credit while keeping closer control over lending risk.

That matters in Southeast Asia, where large parts of the population remain outside traditional banking and credit systems.

Grab says 68% of its driver-partner borrowers in 2025 accessed formal credit for the first time through Grab, while half of those borrowers said they used it to avoid predatory lenders.

The acquisition therefore fits into Grab’s broader effort to use its platform and data to reach customers who may have limited access to conventional financial products.

A Five-Market Combination

Geographic overlap is another major part of the deal.

Grab and Atome both operate in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand, which means the companies already understand the markets where the combined business will operate.

At the same time, their product portfolios are not identical.

Grab has focused heavily on lending to driver and merchant partners, while Atome has built a consumer-focused BNPL and digital-lending business.

That creates room for cross-selling.

Grab can potentially bring Atome products to its existing consumer and merchant ecosystem. Atome, in turn, gains access to a much broader distribution network through Grab.

The companies also expect their combined underwriting and risk-management capabilities to reduce the cost of serving borrowers as the lending business grows.

Grab Raises Its 2028 Financial Targets

The acquisition has also changed Grab’s financial outlook.

The company now expects its Financial Services segment to generate $500 million in adjusted EBITDA by 2028, with a combined gross loan portfolio of more than $6 billion, including Atome Financial.

Grab has also raised its group-level 2028 target to $1.7 billion in adjusted EBITDA and more than 30% annual revenue growth from 2025 to 2028.

The company says the Atome transaction will be funded entirely from existing cash and is expected to be accretive to group adjusted EBITDA after completion.

The deal therefore forms part of a much broader strategy to make financial services a larger contributor to Grab’s business.

Why BNPL Fits Grab’s Superapp Model

Grab started as a ride-hailing business but has gradually built a wider digital ecosystem around mobility, food and grocery delivery, payments, and financial services.

Lending is a natural extension of that model because Grab already has daily interactions with millions of consumers and businesses.

A customer may use Grab to book a ride, order food, pay a merchant, and manage a financial product within the same ecosystem.

The acquisition of Atome adds more credit products to that relationship.

For merchants, it can also create another route to increase purchasing power. Atome’s network includes more than 30,000 brands, while Grab has its own merchant and partner network across Southeast Asia.

That gives the combined business several potential distribution channels.

Atome’s Position in Southeast Asia

Atome Financial was created as part of Advance Intelligence Group, and its business has grown around BNPL, consumer lending, and digital financial services.

Its existing scale makes the acquisition different from Grab building a new lending business from scratch.

Atome already has customers, merchants, a loan portfolio, and lending technology.

The acquisition therefore gives Grab an established financial-services operation that can be integrated into its wider ecosystem.

Reuters described the deal as a move that could accelerate Grab’s consumer-finance expansion, particularly in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand, where Atome brings additional lending capabilities.

The Remaining 40% Will Depend on Performance

Grab is not agreeing to buy the remaining 40% at a fixed price today.

Instead, the second stage will take place approximately two years after the initial closing, with the final valuation linked to Atome Financial’s actual performance.

The valuation framework uses 13 times the annualized adjusted EBITDA and 2.5 times the annualized revenue, measured using the six months before the second transaction closes. The resulting valuation will be subject to a $2 billion floor and $4.5 billion cap.

At least half of that second-stage consideration will be paid in cash.

The structure gives Grab a way to tie the price of the remaining stake to Atome’s future results rather than committing today to a fixed valuation.

Credit Risk Will Be Closely Watched

The expansion also comes with the usual challenges around consumer lending.

BNPL and digital credit can make borrowing easier to access, but responsible underwriting and collections remain critical as loan books grow.

Grab says the combined company plans to share risk-management insights, regulatory practices, and collection strategies to improve underwriting, address fraud, and reduce the risk of consumer over-indebtedness.

Atome’s $1 billion gross loan portfolio has maintained what Grab describes as disciplined credit quality, with delinquency rates stable or improving across borrower cohorts.

That track record will matter as Grab scales the combined business.

The Deal Strengthens Grab’s Financial Services Ambition

Grab’s financial-services segment already includes payments, digital banking, partner lending, insurance, and consumer lending.

Adding Atome gives the segment a larger consumer-credit operation and a broader merchant network.

The transaction also builds on a wider strategy of keeping more financial services inside Grab’s ecosystem.

The company has been investing in digital banking in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, while using its platform data and customer relationships to expand financial products.

Atome adds another piece of that strategy.

Instead of treating lending as a separate business, Grab can connect credit to the rest of the activities happening inside its superapp.

The Wider Shift Toward Embedded Consumer Finance

The deal reflects a broader trend across Southeast Asia.

Large digital platforms are increasingly moving beyond payments and into lending, insurance, savings, and other financial products.

The attraction is the same in many cases: these platforms already have large user bases and significant transaction data.

That can help them distribute financial products in places where traditional customer acquisition is more expensive.

The challenge is maintaining strong lending discipline as those products scale.

Grab is clearly aware of that trade-off.

Its announcement repeatedly links expansion with responsible underwriting, fraud prevention, and consumer-protection requirements.

What Happens Next

The first major milestone is regulatory approval and completion of the 60% acquisition, currently expected in Q3 2027.

Once the transaction closes, Grab will consolidate Atome Financial into its Financial Services segment, while Atome’s existing management team will continue running the business.

The companies can then begin integrating their lending capabilities, customer relationships, and merchant networks.

The second stage will come later, when Grab has the option to acquire the remaining 40% under the performance-linked structure.

That means the full financial impact of the transaction will develop over several years rather than immediately.

TheFinRate Take

Grab’s $1.49 billion deal for a 60% stake in Atome Financial marks a major expansion of its consumer-lending strategy.

The acquisition brings together Atome’s 25 million cumulative transacted users, $1 billion loan portfolio, 30,000-plus brands, and AI-powered lending infrastructure with Grab’s nearly 54 million monthly transacting users and broader payments and financial-services ecosystem.

The deal also gives Grab a faster route to scale in five Southeast Asian markets instead of building comparable lending infrastructure on its own.

But the real test will come after the transaction closes.

Grab will need to combine growth with responsible underwriting, strong collections, and regulatory compliance as the loan book expands.

For now, the strategy is clear: Grab wants financial services to become a much bigger part of its superapp—and Atome gives it a ready-made consumer lending platform to accelerate that push.

Grab agrees $1.49bn deal to buy majority stake in Apac BNPL platform Atome

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