Akulaku turned BNPL for the credit-card-less into a bank-backed HK IPO bid

BNPL and e-commerce financing in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, funded through its own licensed digital bank, Bank Neo Commerce.

That Southeast Asian shoppers without credit cards would finance purchases through embedded BNPL — and that owning a licensed bank would fund the lending.

US$125M round co-led by Silverhorn Group (2021); US$100M from Siam Commercial Bank (Feb 2022); Ant Group is an earlier backer; BNC rights issue of ~US$175M (Q4 2021).

Founded in 2016; CEO William Li framed it as meeting 'the daily financial needs of underserved customers in emerging markets' — credit offered at the point of sale for shoppers banks would not underwrite.

US$125M raised in 2021 co-led by Silverhorn; Bank Neo Commerce launched mobile banking in Mar 2021; US$100M from Siam Commercial Bank in Feb 2022; OJK ordered its paylater to stop in Oct 2023, lifting the ban by Mar 2024.

Reportedly filed confidentially for a Hong Kong listing in Sep 2026, targeting US$300–500M — an earlier 2022 listing attempt, including a SPAC route, never proceeded.

Embedding credit inside a shopping app reached customers banks could not price, and the checkout placement made BNPL the default rather than a product shoppers had to seek out.

Owning Bank Neo Commerce gave Akulaku a funding base and a licence most BNPL startups rent, insulating lending volume from fickle wholesale debt markets.

Regulatory shock proved survivable because the core book stayed clean: even through the OJK suspension, non-performing financing ended 2025 at 1.1%.

A confidential Hong Kong filing fits the market: profitable SEA fintechs now list abroad because the domestic exchange cannot yet price consumer-credit businesses.

In markets where formal credit is scarce, distribution decides who gets financed — and owning a bank decides who funds the financing.

As of September 2026 Akulaku is reportedly in Hong Kong's confidential listing track, aiming to raise US$300–500 million; neither the company nor the exchange has confirmed the filing publicly. Akulaku Finance targets Rp8.2 trillion of new financing for 2026, up 12%, with non-performing financing capped at 1.2%, and is pushing BNPL into tier-2 and tier-3 cities outside Java and into offline merchant networks such as Transmart. The IPO would test public-market appetite for Southeast Asian consumer credit after a decade in which most BNPL rivals were absorbed by banks and platforms.