Payment processing service ePayWeb Asia paid $100m for a 10% stake in AW Virtual Mall, an e-commerce spinout of US-based merchant services provider Allied Wallet, on Friday.
AW Virtual Mall is an online platform that enables users to search for items to buy by uploading a photograph of them. Once the product has been identified, participating online stores with the item in stock can bid against each other to make the sale and customers can purchase it using AW Virtual Mall’s secure checkout system.
It expects to have built a network of more than three million online stores in the next four years. Users will also be able to create a personalised social media profile on the platform through which they can share items and communicate with other users.
Andy Khawaja, founder and CEO of Allied Wallet and AW Virtual Mall, claimed in a statement: “E-commerce is projected to reach $3.5 trillion by 2019 and we are on track to provide the most state-of-the-art shopping experience in the industry – like nothing anyone has ever seen.”
Allied Wallet provides international payment processing and merchant services to online sellers as well as an e-wallet service for ordinary users, who can use it to pay for goods from the company’s e-commerce network.