With the new acquisition of Go-Jek, could Blockchain be a secret weapon against Grab?

Thanks to Go-Jek's diversification strategy, it's easy enough to take a look at the company's future direction based on which companies have bought or shook hands. This time, it emerged that the $ 9 billion company gained a majority stake in the Coins.ph based platform on the blockchain.

Since joining Singapore as a competitor in the race, it seems that Go-Jek is interested in going on tiptoes with Grab in conquering a slice of the Southeast Asian market. For our interests, this is clear in the application of both Go-Pay and GrabPay, the fintech arm of both companies, respectively.

We think that there is much more to this acquisition than the simple experience of Coins.ph in the Philippine market, although this is a major concern as it faces problems of accreditation to obtain clarifications for operations in the Phillippines. The acquisition of a Filipino payment company is undoubtedly part of Go-Jek's strategy to gain entry into the Phillippines.

Beyond that, the acquisition of the Indonesian unicorn could put them on a fast track to reach GrabPay.

Coins.ph, based on a blockchain network, is a platform that allows even non-bankers to access financial services directly from their phone. Their business includes financial services such as remittances, mobile transmission time, bill payments and even online shopping: it is said that the blockchain company has processed over six million transactions a month.

Many segments of these services are a focus carrier also for Grab Financial, so with the strategic implementation of Coin.ph's blockchain capabilities, Go-Jek could find itself recovering and even exceeding Grab Financial's offers.

Experts have opined before that when it comes to products aimed at consumers, a good blockchain application could be invisible. This means that a blockchain application could result in faster transaction speeds, for example, or more efficient asset management or even lower prices.

This is exactly the experience of Coin.ph, which uses the blockchain for "regular" payment transactions.

Meanwhile, Grab continues Grab Financial's efforts with a new partnership with ZhongAn, a famous Chinese insurtech company to offer mobile insurance products in the Grab app on many Southeast Asian phones. It seems that 2019 will be the year in which Go-Jek and Grab will clash in earnest and with similar origins and goals, we will see both unicorns to see who gains the upper hand.

Featured image via Go-Jek