Enhancing Competitiveness by Adding Easy Payment to Shopping Mall
Applied from the Second Half of This Year
SSG.com's Total Assets Increase to 2.06 Trillion Won
[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] SSG.com, a subsidiary of Shinsegae Group, will become the operator of the group's simple payment service 'SSGPAY' starting from the second half of this year, increasing its presence within the group. This move is seen as a strategic measure to enhance market competitiveness by improving consumer convenience in the fiercely competitive e-commerce market.
According to industry sources on the 3rd, Shinsegae I&C, the IT service subsidiary of Shinsegae Group, announced after the market closed on the 31st of last month that it will transfer the business rights of the platform business division responsible for SSGPAY to SSG.com. The assets of the business division to be transferred amount to 28.9 billion KRW, accounting for 9.46% of the total assets. The payment from SSG.com to Shinsegae I&C is 60.1 billion KRW, with the transfer scheduled for June 1st.
SSGPAY operates as a mobile payment platform issuing and managing prepaid electronic payment instruments, electronic payment agency services, and other specialized foreign exchange services. It has been a common simple payment platform used across affiliates including SSG.com, Emart, and Emart24.
As a result, SSG.com's scale will also grow. The total assets held by SSG.com are expected to increase from approximately 2.03 trillion KRW as of the end of September last year to about 2.06 trillion KRW as of June, based on simple aggregation. Established through a physical division of Emart's online shopping mall business division at the end of 2018, SSG.com absorbed Shinsegae Mall and rapidly grew into a large company with assets exceeding 2 trillion KRW within just over two years since its launch.
With the emergence of new e-commerce powerhouses such as Coupang, Market Kurly, and Oasis Market intensifying competition among online shopping malls, this decision is interpreted as a group-level strategy to enhance SSG.com's competitiveness. In fact, SSG.com has expanded its automated logistics center 'NE.O' in Gimpo to its third phase. Currently, it can deliver 10,000 orders per day for dawn delivery across the entire Seoul area. After stabilizing NE.O03 this year, it plans to increase daily delivery volume to a maximum of 20,000 orders.
An SSG.com official explained, "Considering the synergy between our core online shopping mall business and the simple payment service SSGPAY, we decided to acquire this business. SSGPAY will continue to be used as usual at convenience stores, Emart, and other places; only the business operator has changed to SSG.com."
Meanwhile, Shinsegae I&C will reorganize its business focusing on its core IT division. It plans to concentrate investments and resources on growing IT businesses such as retail tech, cloud, and artificial intelligence (AI).
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