KPay Group, a fintech company co-headquartered in Hong Kong and Singapore, has received in-principle approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) for a Major Payment Institution license, under the Payment Services Act 2019 for its Singapore subsidiary KPay Merchant Service (Singapore).

Subject to fulfillment of the MAS’s specified conditions and final approval, the license will enable KPay to offer a broader range of regulated payment services in Singapore, including merchant acquisition and domestic and cross-border money transfers.

An in-principle approval reflects the MAS’s view that a license may be issued upon fulfilment of specified conditions and provided there are no material adverse developments affecting the applicant. It does not constitute a license at this stage, and MAS reserves the right to rescind the approval.

KPay established its Singapore operations in 2022 and currently serves more than 10,000 local small and medium-sized enterprise merchants, primarily in the food and beverage and retail sectors. Its platform combines in-store payment, point-of-sale systems, and merchant intelligence tools including a unified AI-powered dashboard, real-time transaction analytics, and 24/7 customer support.

Davis Chan, Co-founder and CEO of KPay, said the in-principle approval demonstrates the maturity of the group’s compliance and operational standards. Singapore serves as the model for the standards KPay aims to deliver in every market it enters, the executive added/ Chan said trust has to be earned market by market, and the company grows local and stays local in every market.

Keith Chen, General Manager of KPay Singapore, said the approval enables the local team to provide stronger support to Singapore merchants. The group deeply values the regulatory environment MAS has fostered, the executive highlighted.

KPay was founded in Hong Kong in 2020 and serves more than 95,000 merchants across Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore. It raised $55 million in a Series A round in 2024, which it described as the largest globally in the payments sector that year.

Singapore’s Ant International adds Hang Seng Bank to Alipay+ as first Hong Kong banking partner