Anshuman Daga

SINGAPORE: Grab Holdings has fired two top executives from its fintech division. This follows other departures of senior officials in the last few months. Grab Holdings is restructuring the unit that was responsible for the group’s loss-making business. Two sources confirmed this.

Sources close to the situation told Reuters that Chris Yeo is the head of Grab’s rewards and payments business. He has worked with Grab for almost six years and Jeffrey Goh leads Grab’s payment gateway business.

Yeo and Goh both worked for Grab Financial Group’s GrabFin unit. The GrabFin unit offers digital payments, funding, insurance, rewards and wealth management services and is an important part of Grab’s regional growth strategy.

Grab’s loss rose to $3.6billion in 2021, from $2.7billion a year prior. However, revenue rose 44%. This is why investors are focusing on the company’s plans for reducing losses.

Grab saw a decrease in its first quarter loss.

Grab shares lost three quarters of their value since December’s listing on Nasdaq after the record breaking merger of the two companies. This was against an backdrop of falling tech stocks and continued losses.

One source said that GrabFin has put a lot of pressure on business groups to improve their performance. There is a strong focus on profitability.

Yeo and Goh were the managing directors of Grab. SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund and Uber are the largest shareholders. Sources declined to give their names as they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.

GrabFin did not make public the news about their departures or the changes at GrabFin.

GrabFin has announced the departures of Ankur Mehrotra, former banker and head of GrabFin lending. Mehrotra had served as a crucial role in the expansion plan for GrabFin over six years.

Grab’s top tech executive also left this year to start a crypto gaming company, and Grab’s head for insurance and wealth went to found a new startup.

Grab refused to provide any specific information about the departures of executives. Yeo and Goh didn’t immediately reply to Reuters queries.

Grab responded to Reuters via email, saying that it is focused on growing its regional fintech ecosystem. Grab also stated that there was significant potential in Southeast Asia for all of its businesses.

According to the company, its fintech operations are now led by country teams.

GROWTH POTENTIAL

Grab predicted last week that there would be a rebound of mainstay rides-share and food delivery companies as Southeast Asian economies recovered from the effects of the pandemic.

Anthony Tan, Grab CEO and co-founder, stated to analysts that Grab had a goal of profitability via cost management.

Sources said GrabFin had been streamlining regional and national teams in order to concentrate on profitable areas. GrabFin wanted to decrease losses in all the areas it operated, one of the sources stated.

Grab operates in more than 480 cities across eight Southeast Asia countries. The company has more five million registered drivers, and over two million merchants. GFG is a company with great growth potential, according to Grab.

Grab’s region digital banking business which also includes joint ventures in Singapore and Malaysia is part of GFG. Grab also purchased a minority share in an Indonesian Bank this year.