The Osiris Group, an Asian frontier market investment firm, made a USD 7 million Series B fintech investment in SureCash Pte Ltd, a mobile banking and payment operator in Bangladesh.
Earlier, SureCash received Series A investment from a group of Japanese investors specializing in the e-commerce industry.
Founded in 2010 by Dr. Shahadat Khan, SureCash operates the most advanced mobile banking and payment platform in the industry, and allows anyone with a mobile phone to deposit cash, send money, make purchases, and pay bills. While most mobile financial service (MFS) deployments globally are single-bank models with limited scalability, SureCash's cutting-edge technology and superior architecture allows it to integrate multiple banks into its platform, enabling the consumer a rich and flexible experience for all payment categories including retail payments, utility bills, school tuitions, salary disbursements, and many more.
Jason Bajaj, Co-Founder and Managing Director of The Osiris Group, said, "Simply put, SureCash is a game changer. Led by a highly technical CEO and seasoned management team, the company has created a mobile banking and payment platform unlike anything else today. We have thoroughly researched Bangladesh MFS market and are convinced that its size supports 2-3 dominant players. We are further convinced that with its engineering excellence, innovation capabilities, and ability to deploy custom services, SureCash will truly transform lives and rapidly ascend to a dominant market position."
Dr. Shahadat Khan, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of SureCash commented, "SureCash is a growing network operating with 30,000 retail agents in partnership with 5 scheduled banks and more than 50 payment affiliates including public utilities, municipalities, merchants and education institutions in Bangladesh. We are pleased to have Osiris as one of our partners. They not only bring capital but also deep experience in the emerging payment space. Together, we are building a payment platform to serve the people of this nation, and are eager to work closely with all stakeholders, including the telcos, financial institutions, regulators, central bank and our customers."
On the importance of foreign direct investment (FDI), Bajaj added, "Over the past five years, the Government of Bangladesh has achieved wonderful milestones around social progress and security stability. Solid fiscal and monetary policy, strengthening foreign reserves and other macro tailwinds allow stronger conviction allocating risk capital to transparent private sector entrepreneurs. Bangladesh Bank Governor, Dr. Atiur Rahman, has boldly engineered an inclusive MFS ecosystem which has become the benchmark for financial inclusion for many emerging countries today. We are thankful to the Government of Bangladesh and look forward to investing in additional opportunities for improving governance, skill-set transfer, and job creation for her 160 million resilient citizens."