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Singapore payments firm plans expansion from Dubai hub

Aleta Planet also plans to launch a food traceability app

Aleta Planet, a Singapore-based global payments solution provider, expects to use its Dubai hub to expand into the wider Middle East and Africa, its founder said.

“The EMEA region to us is also operational centre to expand into Africa, Europe because of its strategic location, the time zone. Though the costs have been increasing, we still find that it is still a practical place,” Ryan Gwee, founder of group chairman of Aleta Planet, told Khaleej Times in an interview. “Dubai will be the hub, both on operating and strategy to expand business here is Europe and Africa. And in fact, we’re opening our office in Spain. So that’s our first foray into Europe,” he added.

Founded in 2014 in Singapore, Aleta Planet is a holistic payments technology provider of merchant acquisition, card issuance, remittance and B2B payments. As a global payment facilitator that interconnects different payment options and types, Aleta Planet specialises in helping Chinese companies to scale the global market. Aleta Planet is licensed in Singapore by the Monetary Authority of Singapore as a Major Payment Institution and in other jurisdictions, with offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Australia and Malaysia. Its secure and internationally certified proprietary platform connects businesses to the world’s payment infrastructure through one Application Programming Interface, enabling business growth, greater customer engagement and new revenue opportunities.

The success of its card network-agnostic platform has also garnered Aleta Planet its operating licenses from card networks including Diners Club, Discover Network, JCB, MasterCard, Union Pay International Visa, SWIFT and other Alternative Payment Methods. Furthermore, Aleta Planet’s broad network enables individuals and businesses to deposit local currencies in 39 countries or remit funds to 140 countries.

On a year to year basis, Aleta Planet transacts about 20,000 cross border trade transactions with a value of more than $2 billion. The company's annual growth rate as a group is about 20 per cent.

As a China-focused payments company, Gwee sees enormous potential in boosting business in Dubai. “China is Dubai’s biggest trading partner. As Chinese companies continue to globalize, we see a lot of traction with launching our products here. Because when Chinese companies globalize, they need to register a company, they need to open a bank account and then they will need to satisfy repaying their suppliers in China for the products that they are exporting. So this is our speciality, basically renminbi payments, supplier payments cross border in and out of China,” Gwee said.

A new product where Gwee sees a major market is food traceability, for which the company has recently launched an app in China. “We have put 30 years of data of fruits and traders in a blockchain and using AI to be able to trace the quality, the sickness, the health, the ripeness of 146 kinds of foods. We can scan and trace these from farm to supermarkets. This will reduce a lot of wastage. We hope to launch this in Dubai soon,” Gwee said.