Kakao Pay goes public

Seoul-based mobile payment and digital wallet Kakao Pay, the fintech unit of the country’s largest messaging app operator Kakao Corp, ended its first day of trading yesterday up 114% at $163.30 (193,000 won) from the issue price of $76.20 (90,000 won), securing a market capitalization of $21.2 billion.

Founded in 2014, Kakao Pay currently has a total of 36.5 million users and 20 million monthly active users. Backed by Ant Group, the start-up recorded a total transaction volume of $72.4 billion for 12 months as of June and increased its revenue to more than 102% over the past two years.