Lippo Group shows their seriousness in entering the digital business, especially e-commerce-related ones. The company is reportedly planning to launch online payment, chat, and other online services early next year. Its payment service is expected to function as good as PayPal.

As reported by Reuters, Lippo, which just injected $500 million to O2O e-commerce service MatahariMall, is ready to fund other online services. Moreover, the company now has its own internet infrastructure.

John Riady, Lippo Group’s Director, said:

“This is about the flow of money, data, and goods. We kickstarted it with MatahariMall that serves the flow of goods, we now look upon the flow of money and data.”

Lippo is reportedly going to make a significant investment, bigger than its investment at MatahariMall, to build a PayPal-like payment service with localized features. The service will be equipped with news and chat functions. They are open for partnership possibilities that may push their e-commerce service.

In Indonesia, there are a number of local online payment services, but most of them target B2B clients as they focus on payment gateway. An example to a PayPal-like local company is iPaymu.

According to Riady, although there would be a lot of investment being injected to various online businesses in Southeast Asia, including the ones by Lippo Group, the condition wouldn’t be a repetition to the bubble back in the “dotcom” era. He said, “Today, the company secures real income and there are economic activities within. Does it justify a high valuation, I’m not sure. At least you know that there are serious things involved, not merely a child’s play.”