Norville (Pte) Ltd Chairman Syed M. Altaf Hussain, Robert Wang and Woo LLP Business Practice Group Assistant Andrea Wang, Robert Wang and Woo LLP Business Practice Group Partner Yolanda Lee, Norville (Pte) Ltd Managing Director Syed Jan, PAYable (Pvt.) Ltd CEO/Co-Founder Yohan Wijesiriwardane, Director/General Manager Saajid Reyaz and D.L. and F. De Saram Partner Jivan P. Goonetilleke

PAYable, Sri Lanka’s breakthrough mobile commerce platform, announced that it has now officially launched its presence in Bangladesh.

PAYable (Pvt.) Ltd, formerly CBA Solutions (Pvt.) Ltd, has partnered with Norville (Pte.) Ltd to bring the company’s cutting-edge cashless solution to the SME sector in Bangladesh.

PAYable’s portable payment solution is a mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) device that connects to iOS and Android smartphones or tablets wirelessly via a Bluetooth connection.

The PAYable Card Reader and App is completely free of charge, empowering both large and small businesses with the flexibility of accepting payments anywhere, at any time. Furthermore, cardholder information is protected by the same global security standards developed by leading card networks Visa, MasterCard, and Amex.

From an e-commerce perspective, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) of Bangladesh, the number of internet users has nearly tripled from 6.5 percent of the population in 2013 to 18.2 percent in 2017 and continues to grow. The ITU’s latest Bangladesh profile further states that 88.1 percent of inhabitants have a mobile phone subscription while 30 percent of inhabitants have a mobile broadband subscription.

Notably, from a population of nearly 165 million, nearly 12 million are credit and debit card users.

Speaking on the expansion, PAYable CEO and Co-Founder Yohan Wijesiriwardane said: “As a country, Bangladesh is incredibly promising for our product, owing to its high population density and fertile merchant-dealing SME space. We decided that now was the right time for PAYable to take on international waters, by making our entry into a market that we predict will show exponential growth even greater than what we have seen in Sri Lanka.”

“As a growing economy, the mobile payments space in Bangladesh is gaining momentum at a rapid pace, and on a very large scale,” said Norville Pte. Ltd Managing Director Syed Jan. “Our partnership with PAYable is a perfect fit given its focus on providing the highest level of ease and security for its subscribers. We are excited to be a part of PAYable’s expanding regional presence.”

PAYable has grown to service 20,000 merchants in the period since its founding in 2016 to date, with a cumulative transaction value of over Rs.4.5 billion.

Having most recently secured a partnership with Amex - now offering payments via all three major credit cards - PAYable has also been endorsed by the country’s leading banks.

Integration of the operation in Bangladesh is currently underway, with commercial operations set to commence in August of 2019.

In response to the increasing demand for its mobile payment service, this is predicted to be a step in the right direction for PAYable, with a presence in Singapore next on the cards.

Norville (Pte) Ltd Chairman Syed M. Altaf Hussain and PAYable (Pvt.) Ltd CEO/Co-Founder Yohan Wijesiriwardane

Norville (Pte) Ltd Managing Director Syed Jan and PAYable (Pvt.) Ltd CEO/Co-Founder Yohan Wijesiriwardane