Case Study · Growth Advisory
APAC market entry through a Singapore hub
A European payments company needed Asia. We designed the Singapore-first entry strategy that took them from zero regional presence to eleven live corridors.
Client: Nordpay
11
APAC corridors live in 24 months
2
bank partnerships signed
1/3
of volume now from APAC
The problem
Nordpay's European exporter clients kept asking for Asian corridors the company could not serve. Expansion decisions were being made from Zagreb without regulatory presence, local partnerships, or corridor economics. Two earlier exploratory efforts had burned budget and produced nothing durable.
The strategy
One hub, then the region. Rather than chasing eleven markets at once, we concentrated everything on Singapore: the MAS licensing pathway, a real local entity, and bank partnerships that would serve as both infrastructure and credibility. Each subsequent corridor inherited the trust built at the hub.
The execution
- 01Corridor-by-corridor economics model to sequence markets by margin, not size
- 02Singapore entity and licensing pathway coordinated with local counsel
- 03Bank partnership pipeline built and negotiated over three quarters
- 04First APAC hires, country lead and partnerships lead, sourced from the operator network
- 05Quarterly expansion reviews holding the roadmap to actual corridor performance
The outcome
Within two years Nordpay operated eleven APAC corridors, held two institutional bank partnerships, and drew a third of total processing volume from the region. The Singapore entity now anchors all Asian operations.
“We had tried Asia twice and failed twice. The difference this time was sequencing: Singapore first, credibility first, then everything else became easier.”
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