Fintech PayTabs acquires Turkey’s social commerce platform, Paymes

PayTabs, Saudi’s payment gateway, has announced that it has acquired a 100 per cent stake in Paymes, Turkey’s social commerce platform.

Under the terms of the acquisition, Paymes will serve as PayTabs social commerce platform. It will empower freelancers, artisans, consultants, home-based business owners, personal trainers and micro vendors across the Middle East and Africa to receive instant payments.

The synergy with Paymes will open new social media platforms such as Messenger, Facebook and Instagram for merchants that trade and sell over social media but need a legitimate way of collecting their funds.

The acquisition provides an opportunity for PayTabs to grow and expand its payment footprint in the Eurasian markets, with features offered by the Paymes platform, such as live cashier inventory management and Paymes Reels.

In the Turkish region, this acquisition allows Paymes to elevate itself as a “social commerce processor.”

Paymes, which currently serves over 850,000 users across Turkey and Azerbaijan, will capitalise on the market presence of PayTabs to advance digital and social payments in the MENA region.

One of the key benefits of Paymes is that it allows users to set up a mini e-commerce webstore – known as the ‘Paymes shop’.

The web store can be customised and branded, saving additional costs for merchants who would otherwise pay to have their websites designed and developed via professional agencies.

This feature will give weight to empowering a new segment of women entrepreneurs who run micro-home-based businesses selling over WhatsApp.

“Under the acquisition agreement, the Paymes team will expand our responsibilities to cover the many markets that PayTabs operates in throughout MENA,” said Paymes co-founder and PayTabs regional head/operating partner Hasan Jabbrov.

“We will also be supporting PayTabs with our range of new social commerce products, a sector in which we have considerable experience. Exciting times ahead for webpreneurs in the region.”

“Payments are a commodity, and our mission at PayTabs is to ensure that payments are easily made available to every customer segment from the super merchant or bank to a nano merchant,” stated founder and CEO of the PayTabs Group, Abdulaziz Al Jouf.

“By acquiring Paymes, we are consolidating our position as the only payment solutions powerhouse that has a payment orchestration platform to offer payments solutions for any business size – micro or macro, across the globe.”

“By the number of merchants and know-how that we gained from social commerce, we are preparing to launch various spin-offs on specific verticals,” added Sabrican Zaim, co-founder and CEO of Paymes.

“In addition to these spin-offs, we are developing payment mechanisms through live broadcasts with reels in social commerce, which is our strongest muscle. We believe Paymes is an enabler with an accelerator effect for payment platforms and e-commerce startups. Our co-operation as a Facebook commerce partner strengthens us.

“We are targeting to improve the cash flows of our merchants by providing them buy now pay later, consumer finance and even a special Paymes Card. As the most preferred social commerce platform of the region, under PayTabs global vision we are targeting to serve more merchants in all continents.”

Uzbekistan, Jordan and Georgia are new markets on the horizon for the launch of Paymes in 2023.

The valuation of the acquisition deal remains undisclosed.

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