Global payment firm Primer and Singapore-based unified commerce platform Hitpay have announced a new partnership, unlocking faster access to global markets for merchants across Southeast Asia.

The duo said in a statement on Tuesday that the region’s rapidly growing cross-border e-commerce market is expected to reach over $76 billion by 2030 – with merchants increasingly selling to customers worldwide.

But meeting international demand means navigating complex licensing requirements and managing multiple PSP connections — undermining payment performance and slowing time-to-market.

As the merchant of record for Southeast Asian businesses selling overseas, HitPay handles cross-border payment processing, compliance and settlement on behalf of merchants based in markets such as Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia, enabling them to sell to customers in the US and Europe.

In Southeast Asia, where micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) constitute 97 percent of all businesses, the push for international expansion has become a strategic necessity.

In Singapore, local businesses are encouraged to be ‘born global’ to secure high-value partnerships with multinational corporations (MNCs), utilizing government grants to scale beyond their home borders.

Malaysia intensified national efforts last year to raise MSME export contributions to 15 percent.

Meanwhile, the Philippines is at a tipping point; while market and payment complexities have traditionally made internationalization a lower priority, 32 percent of MSMEs expressed interest to enhance their international presence this year.

Now, through Primer’s unified infrastructure, Singapore-based HitPay can access local acquirers across key global markets, extending multi-currency card acceptance beyond the region while delivering the same high-performing, locally optimized payment experience for companies operating on the ground.

“Our merchants have evolved from serving primarily local customers to selling globally – from Southeast Asian exporters reaching the United States, to travel and hospitality businesses attracting European customers,

“Accelerated access to new markets and local-level payment performance will be transformative for our fast-growing merchants. The integration was fast, with minimal engineering – but the impact has been immediate, especially in fast-growing segments like travel,” said Aditya Haripurkar, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of HitPay.

Gabriel Le Roux, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Primer, said enabling merchants to scale internationally is still one of the hardest problems in payments.

“By partnering with HitPay, we’re opening new markets for their merchants and laying the foundation for long-term global expansion. This partnership shows how open, unified payments infrastructure can drive real growth for fintechs and the millions of businesses they power,” he added.

The collaboration extends in both directions, with HitPay integrating into Primer as part of the new Primer for Partners Program.

Launched last month, Primer for Partners allows PSPs, APMs and Fraud providers to build and manage their own integration onto the Primer platform, making their products available to any Primer merchant while benchmarking and monitoring their performance.

Offering one of the region’s most comprehensive portfolios of alternative payment methods (APMs), spanning more than 700 local payer options, the partnership will give Primer’s customers seamless access to new customers across Southeast Asia’s highly fragmented payments landscape without additional integrations.

“HitPay’s coverage across Southeast Asia is extensive,

“Pairing HitPay’s regional depth with Primer’s global infrastructure creates a two-way expansion model – connecting Southeast Asian merchants to the world, and global merchants to Southeast Asia,” added Le Roux.

For both companies, the partnership marks the beginning of a broader collaboration focused on replacing payments complexity with resilient infrastructure — giving merchants the confidence to expand internationally without sacrificing performance, control or speed.

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