Yes, you heard that correctly. According to a report recently published by Allied Market Research, the global mobile payments market is estimated to reach a staggering $3,388 billion by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 33.4% from 2016 - 2022. Asia-Pacific is expected to witness the highest growth during this period.

One of the biggest and most aggressive players in the Asia Mobile Payments space is Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) owned Ant Financial. Ant Financial was launched in 2004 and was named Alipay. Alipay was an escrow-based online payment method for Chinese consumers in need of a way to safely pay on Alibaba's eCommerce sites.

Overtime, Alipay became the cornerstone of not only Alibaba but also a massive online financial services ecosystem where users could shop on and offline, send money to other people and pay bills. Nearly 70 percent of all online buying in China happens via Alipay.

In 2014, Alipay was renamed Ant Financial. Lucy Peng, then CEO of Ant Financial commented at the time, "The word 'ant' embodies the strength of 'small' when all working towards a common goal, and the hope that Ant Financial will bring a new future through small and beautiful changes to everybody."

At its last capital raise in 2016, Ant's market cap was pegged at $60 billion; a Hong Kong investment bank recently put it closer to $75 billion. By comparison, the market cap of American Express (NYSE: AXP) is $70 billion; Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS) is $26 billion; Mastercard (NYSE: MA) is $125 billion; PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) is $53 billion and Visa (NYSE: V) is $210 billion.

Finding the Market(s) With the Greatest Unmet Need

So where does Alibaba/Ant go from here? And, where should investors seeking to profit from the burgeoning online payments space turn to find the next growth stage company that can capitalize on this massive trend?

Many developing markets, especially those in Southeast Asia are in desperate need of online/mobile payment solutions. Ant Financial, along with several smaller public and venture backed companies are already there competing for market share.

In early April, Ant bought helloPay, the largest mobile payments network in Southeast Asia, and immediately rebranded all of its mobile payments properties: AliPay Singapore, Alipay Malaysia, Alipay Indonesia, and Alipay Philippines.

Also in April, the Singaporean ride-sharing platform Grab (Uber's most formidable competitor in Asia) acquired Indonesia's largest platform for online to offline mobile payments for $100 million. Grab has pledged to invest $700 million into Indonesia across the next four years, an incredible sum of money for a country where less than 10% of the population currently can pay electronically, yet almost 100% of the population is expected to have access to a smartphone by 2020.

Indonesia Could Be the Next Great Opportunity in Mobile Payments

Indonesia is expected to be Asia's next BIG e-commerce market, according to a recent article published by the influential technology site Tech Crunch. Most current projections estimate this archipelago nation's e-market at $130 billion by 2020 (coming third behind China and India).

According to Tech Crunch's Hugh Harsono, "Indonesia's current e-commerce market is similar to China's online marketplace beginnings, with a large pool of entrepreneurial sellers providing goods purchased based largely on social media recommendations. Similarly, e-commerce in Indonesia also mimics the early U.S. e-market, which was flooded with customers wary to trust online payments and retailers. Indonesia is truly unique in that it has the potential to create a hybrid of the widest opportunities from America and China's e-commerce economies, propelling the Indonesian online marketplace onto the global stage."

The most important facilitator of this rapid online growth is the ability of the average Indonesian to pay electronically for goods or services. Although there are several players competing for market share, one small publicly traded company in the U.S. has been aggressively doing deals with some very large utilities, banks and retailers in Indonesia.

KinerjaPay Appears to Be Building a Formidable Platform in Indonesia

KinerjaPay Corp (OTCQB: KPAY), headquartered in New York, NY with an office in Jakarta has been regularly announcing significant partnerships with large merchants in Indonesia. And, it appears these partnerships are beginning to pay off, as KPAY has doubled their userbase from 50,000 to over 100,000 in the 7-month period from 7/2016 to 1/2017.

Here's a summary of the partnerships KPAY has inked over the past few months:

- On April 26, KPAY announced a partnership with two of Indonesia's leading convenience store chains with more than 23,000 locations.

- On April 13, KPAY announced that three leading Indonesian auto-finance companies had joined the platform, representing what appeared to be millions of potential transactions annually.

- On April 10, KPAY announced that Indonesia's largest provider of loans and credit had joined the platform, adding 30 million potential accounts that could be serviced by KPAY.

- On March 31, KPAY announced that its platform is now available to Indonesia's state-run electric company, adding 60 million potential customers.

KPAY is 1 of only 5 companies with a Central Bank license that allows their customers to deposit money to a KinerjaPay-linked bank account that is registered to their respective smartphone. According to KPAY, the central bank has stopped issuing licenses for this. Assuming this is true, and KPAY continues to execute on expanding its footprint in Indonesia, we believe investors long the stock at today's levels could see a great return. How great?
As of publication of this article, KPAY has 9 million shares outstanding and a market cap of $20 million. This is microscopic compared to Alibaba-owned Ant Financial's recently disclosed market cap of $75 billion, NYSE listed American Express, and Paypal, the darling online payment company of America and other parts of the world.
Because of low credit card penetration rates in Indonesia, Companies seeking access to the country's rapidly growing economy will need to partner with or acquire mobile payment platforms such as KPAY. We believe continued partnerships and a possible acquisition or strategic investment from a multinational represent powerful near-term catalysts for KPAY that give investors good reason to be long the stock at today's valuation.

About One Equity Stocks

One Equity Stocks is a leading provider of research on publicly traded emerging growth companies. Our team is comprised of sophisticated financial professionals that strive to find the companies and management teams that will outperform the market and deliver investment returns to our subscribers. We are not a licensed broker dealer and do not publish investment advice and remind readers that investing involves considerable risk. One Equity Stocks encourages all readers to carefully review the SEC filings of any issuers we cover and consult with an investment professional before making any investment decisions. One Equity Stocks is a for profit business and is usually compensated for coverage of issuers. In the case of KPAY, One Equity Stocks and affiliates have been compensated 40,000 restricted shares of common stock and $5,000 to cover expenses for advisory, marketing and business development services. We may receive additional compensation in the future.