[THE INVESTOR] Line, a mobile messenger firm owned by Korean portal operator Naver, has acquired a major stake in Taiwan-based mobile payment firm iPass in its latest efforts to extend its e-payment services, industry sources said on May 25.

Line Biz+Taiwan, the operator of LINE Pay in Taiwan, bought a 29.82 percent stake in iPass for 12.4 billion won (US$11.50 million), becoming the largest shareholder. The second largest shareholder is Taiwan’s Kaohsiung MRT which holds 11.40 percent. 

 

iPass is the only Taiwanese company to obtain licenses for both electronic stored value cards and e-payments, according to LINE.

Line will expand its payment service in the region where Line Pay has more than 2.2 million users as of January. Almost 77 percent of Taiwan’s population or 180 million people, are using Line messenger.

Line Pay’s total transactions reached 473 billion yen in 2017.

By Park Ga-young (gypark@heraldcorp.com)