Payment portal WiPay has set early 2023 as the new timeline to list its Jamaica operations in the form of a digital asset on the Jamaica Stock Exchange.
The initial public offering, or IPO, was slated for 2020, but then the pandemic occurred and reset the capital markets. Additionally, JSE Group is still to roll out its digital assets platform, although it has said the trading of securitised tokens was likely to begin by year end.
“We are looking to list WiPay Jamaica in January,” said founder and CEO Aldwyn Wayne at a company event at the AC by Marriott Hotel in Kingston, to mark its fifth anniversary.
Wayne said that the local operations will list, but not the wider territories at this time. The company started in Trinidad & Tobago and expanded into over nine countries, with further plans to enter Colombia.
WiPay will use Canada-based Blockstation as its technology partner for the IPO. The company plans to list as a digital asset on the junior stock market in the coming year.
It’s the first to disclose such detailed plans for the listing of a digital asset.
“The precise date is going to be determined by their broker and the approval by the Financial Services Commission,” added Jai Waterman, CEO and chief enterprise architect of Blockstation at the the WiPay event.
WiPay customers will gain access to the IPO by tapping a button on the app. The process from the app to a broker and automated sign-up would be provided by Blockstation.
Waterman said that company had strengthened during the delay in listing. For instance, WiPay now operates Volt, its own money-settlement system, which doesn’t require the services of a correspondent US bank and keeps money in its network. WiPay also plans to offer digital credit cards that run on the MasterCard network. It would avoid the use of a physical card, providing payments by phone instead.
steven@jackson@gleanerjm.com