MOL AccessPortal Takes Majority Stake in Rixty, Inc.

Investment in Rixty Expands MOL’s Presence into North and South America

23 October 2012, Kuala Lumpur – MOL AccessPortal Sdn. Bhd. (MOL), Asia’s leading e-payment service provider and a subsidiary of MOL Global Pte. Ltd., announced that it has made a majority investment in Silicon Valley-based alternative payment platform provider Rixty, Inc. (Rixty), becoming the first Asian e-payment service provider to acquire a North American e-payments platform.

Founded in 2007, Rixty allows users to spend cash and coins for online games, virtual goods and digital content via kiosks and prepaid cards at retail stores. The alternative payment platform allows consumers without credit cards or bank accounts to create spending accounts for online entertainment simply by taking their cash and coins to more than 75,000 locations across the United States and 66,000 locations in Brazil.

L-R - Mr. Tan U-Ming, Director of MOL Global; Mr. Don Ferguson, Rixty’s Vice President of Engineering; Mr. Ganesh Kumar Bangah, Chief Executive Officer of MOL; Mr. Ted Sorom, Chief Executive Officer of Rixty; Mr. Stephen Jacques, Counselor of Commercial Affairs, U.S. Embassy of Kuala Lumpur

The investment in Rixty will provide MOL a strong foothold in North and South America, while supporting its continued global expansion. Rixty presently has offices in the United States and Brazil, with plans to expand into Canada and Mexico by the first quarter of next year. Including Rixty, MOL now operates in ten countries and plans to further expand into another two countries by the end of the year.

With global internet bandwidth improving, an increasing number of games are serving a global audience from a centralised North American base of operations. This strategic partnership will allow MOL to service global game publishers and provide a one-stop solution for them to monetise their global user base.

MOL and Rixty agree on the importance of the Brazilian market to online game publishers and are committed to further grow their presence in Latin America enabling global game publishers to monetise this important market. Brazil’s online games market is currently worth US$265 million and is estimated to almost double in size over the next few years.

MOL Global’s Group Chief Executive Officer, Ganesh Kumar Bangah, said the investment allows MOL to expand into these two huge markets while enabling MOL to tap into the best talent in Silicon Valley. “This investment takes us one step ahead to be global leaders in the US$19.2 billion worldwide virtual goods market. We look forward to working together with Ted and the Rixty team to capitalise on this tremendous opportunity,” Ganesh said.

“As a leading e-payment provider in Asia, MOL is the perfect partner to complement Rixty’s payment infrastructure across North and South America,” said Ted Sorom, CEO of Rixty, Inc.  “Global publishers require a global solution. Together we give publishers the comprehensive worldwide payment platform they require,” Ted concluded.

Ganesh and Ted were speaking at the signing ceremony of the agreement between the two companies on the majority investment by MOL in Rixty. At the signing ceremony, MOL AccessPortal was represented by MOL’s Group Chief Executive Officer, Ganesh Kumar Bangah, while Rixty was represented by Ted Sorom, its Chief Executive Officer.

With this investment, the existing Rixty executive team and staff will continue extending the Rixty payment system into the Americas from their headquarters in San Francisco, California and their South American office in São Paulo, Brazil.

MOL and Soft Space in Joint Venture To Promote Mobile Payment Acquiring

New Joint Venture, MOLCube to enable small and medium-sized businesses to collect credit and debit card payments via smart mobile devices 

KUALA LUMPUR, 5 October 2012 – MOL AccessPortal Sdn. Bhd., Asia’s leading e-payment service provider and a subsidiary of MOL Global Pte Ltd today signed a joint venture agreement with Soft Space International Sdn. Bhd. to establish MOLCube Sdn. Bhd., a mobile payment acquiring company that will focus on enabling small and medium-sized businesses to accept credit and debit card payments using mobile devices.

Under the agreement, the newly established company intends to become a Third Party Acquirer (TPA) that will further promote a cashless society by enabling more merchants to accept cashless transactions using the mobile phone, tablets and other such IP-Based smart devices using Soft Space’s EMV Level 2 compliant technology. Soft Space is one of three companies in the world that has been certified by EMVCo to perform credit and debit card processing on smart devices with such a certification.

(L-R) Datuk Vincent Lee, Mr Chang Chew Soon, Mr Ganesh Kumar Bangah and Tan Sri Dato Seri Vincent Tan.

MOL Global’s Group Chief Executive Officer Ganesh Kumar Bangah commented that the formation of the joint venture marks a significant milestone in the mobile payments industry not only in Malaysia but also for the region.

“Today’s announcement represents another important milestone in growing our product range which has grown from our MOLReloads infrastructure to MOLPoints micropayment system to our MOLPay e-commerce payment system. We will endeavour to further grow the MOLCube business just like our other businesses to become regional and global businesses quickly. We are presently in eight (8) countries worldwide and are intending to grow to 12 countries by the end of the year. All these countries will be target markets for the expansion of MOLCube. As a start, we will be targeting the associated companies within the Berjaya Group as the initial merchants for this product,” he said.

The joint venture company will also benefit from Soft Space's product portfolio, Research and Development (R&D) and MOL’s leading e-payment strength and international market- driven capabilities.

Mobile payment or M-payment is a service which is continually gaining in popularity as there are huge number of mobile phone users and bank card holders. Currently, in Malaysia, Bank Negara, the central bank is encouraging the growth of e-payments, through various methods.

The number of mobile payment subscribers worldwide was nearly 2 Billion users in 2011. The total value of mobile payment market is expected to cross US$ 500 Billion by 2014.  Asia is expected to become one the most important market and accounting for more than 60 per cent of the total market share and 80 per cent of mobile payment users.

“We are glad to be working with an established regional and global player like MOL to expand our product base. MOL’s expertise, experience and market reach in both the online and e-payment industries will provide a great boon for commercialisation of technology innovation developed by Soft Space,” Chang Chew Soon, founder of Soft Space said.

The collaboration will further strengthen the companies’ objectives to provide safe and secure mobile payment transaction for corporations and individuals to accept credit cards through their mobile phones by swiping the card on the MOLCube card reader device.

Ganesh and Chew Soon were speaking at the signing ceremony between MOL and Soft Space. At the signing ceremony, MOL AccessPortal was represented by Ganesh, while Soft Space’s founder Chang Chew Soon signed on behalf of Soft Space. The significant event was witnessed by Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Vincent Tan, the founder of Berjaya and Datuk Vincent Lee, the Executive Chairman of Feotus International Sdn. Bhd.

The MOLCube chip card reader can be integrated to iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. It will also be compatible with Android and Windows Devices and will be launched in the current quarter.