Grab in Talks for Majority Stake in BNPL Platform Atome, Sources Say

SINGAPORE — Grab Holdings, the Southeast Asian superapp operator, is in private negotiations to acquire a majority stake in Atome Financial, the buy-now-pay-later platform owned by Singapore-based Advance Intelligence Group, according to people familiar with the discussions. A deal, if reached, could value Atome at more than $2 billion, though as of Thursday no final agreement had been signed and representatives for both companies declined to comment.

The reporting on this deal illustrates a distinction worth stating plainly: everything here is sourced to people familiar with the matter rather than to an announcement from Grab or Advance Intelligence Group, and the companies’ own silence means the $2 billion figure, the “majority stake” framing, and even whether talks conclude in a transaction at all remain unconfirmed by the parties themselves. That is a normal state for M&A reporting at this stage, but it is different from a signed deal, and the two should not be treated interchangeably.

If it proceeds, the logic is legible from Grab’s side: the company has spent years building out its financial-services arm alongside its ride-hailing and delivery businesses, and installment lending at the point of sale is a natural complement to a superapp that already handles a large share of a user’s everyday transactions in the region. Atome, meanwhile, has built out BNPL merchant relationships across several Southeast Asian markets, which would give Grab distribution it would otherwise need years to replicate independently.

The deal would also be a notable outcome for Advance Intelligence Group, which has built Atome as one of the more visible BNPL brands in the region alongside competitors with broader geographic footprints elsewhere in Asia. A sale of a majority stake — rather than an outright acquisition — would suggest the company is seeking a strategic partner and capital infusion while retaining some ownership, though the structure of any eventual deal has not been reported in enough detail to say more than that.

Regional BNPL consolidation of this kind sits inside a broader pattern this publication has covered before: installment lending outside the U.S. major-bureau reporting framework tends to be judged on growth and merchant-partnership metrics that are easier to announce than to audit, and a transaction of this size would be a meaningful test of how acquirers price that growth once a deal actually reaches signature rather than the talks stage it is in now.