Fintech unicorn PingPong secures innovative e-money licence in Luxembourg
Today, PingPong announces its authorisation as an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) in Luxembourg. This would make it the first Luxembourg-based B2B fintech, with offices in Hangzhou, New York, San Francisco, Japan and Hong Kong to achieve this feat in the EU after applying in December 2019.
The licence enables PingPong to offer a more flexible array of services and increase the scope of customers in the future. PingPong has already helped over 800,000 sellers across the globe spanning 14 different markets. It will aid the firm’s international expansion, which officially became a unicorn in March this year with a valuation of US $1.5bn. With this licence, the company will be able to provide a secure electronic wallet and access to a host of new services.
While banks were slow to digitally adapt, mobile cross-border payment services have exploded in popularity over the past few years. Europe currently leads the instant payments evolution, and is predicted to see an unprecedented growth of over 500% in world-wide volume by 2025. This has allowed agile fintechs such as PingPong to capitalise on the global e-commerce boom that could see a record-breaking $3.914tr in sales this year.
Innovation is enabling fintechs to deliver efficient payment services to consumers at a much lower cost, with the EMI licence filling the gap between conventional banks and consumers by creating digital products, services and channels for fulfilling a vast range of customer payment needs.
Ning Wang, co-founder and chief business officer at PingPong comments: “We are extremely proud to announce obtaining an EMI licence in Luxembourg, a world-renowned fintech hub and pioneer within the EU market. This will strengthen our existing services which can support customers on different market places such as Amazon, eBay and Walmart and grant us the flexibility to broaden our business model to beyond e-commerce platforms. It is a testament to our global growth and compliments the numerous licences we hold around the world, laying the foundation for many more e-wallets to come. PingPong is truly going global, with compliance and security placed at the heart of everything we do.”
Ning Wang continues: “Now with the wind force of the pandemic, e-commerce is becoming a dominant force in the retail landscape and a catalyst for globalization. This EMI licence will allow us to diversify our offerings to support customers in a way the banking system was not built to, consolidating our world-class capability in cross border payments whilst priming our position as the e-commerce bank of the future.”
Pierre Gramegna, minister of finance, Luxembourg concludes: “Today, Luxembourg is one of the leading payment and e-money hubs in the EU and I’m happy to see that it continues to grow. In this sense, I welcome that PingPong has just upgraded its Luxembourg presence with a new e-money licence that will help it better serve its European customers.”
