MOL acquires LoadCentral

MANILA, Philippines -  Malaysian online services giant MOL Access Portal, which made headlines in 2009 for buying social networking site Friendster, has purchased 100 percent of LoadCentral, the Philippines’ leading prepaid payment platform.

Ganesh Kumar Bangah, chief executive officer of MOL, said the acquisition signifies their confidence on the further growth prospects of the Philippines’ prepaid telecommunication services payment sector, as well as the prospects of online gaming through social networking sites led by Friendster and Facebook in the country.

“The Philippine online gaming and social networking markets are experiencing spectacular growth. These are now part of Philippines’ dynamic digital entertainment and media industries,” Bangah said.

“Our vision is to make it easy and safe for consumers in the Philippines to acquire virtual currency for their digital lifestyle,” he added.

In a press briefing Bangah gave along with LoadCentral general manager Jeff Boone, Bangah said he expects their acquisition of the Philippine e-load or “electronic load” retailer to boost their revenues for the year by 10 to 20 percent.

MOL Access Portal’s revenue boost from the LoadCentral acquisition was impressive considering that their 2010 payment volume was $300 million.

The absorption of LoadCentral into MOL makes MOL the largest payment provider for prepaid services for the growing online market in the Philippines.

Boone, who will be retained by MOL as the firm’s general manager, said the Philippines’ prepaid telco services payment industry is a “P10-billion a month industry and it is still growing”.

LoadCentral, Boone said, is “the most successful platform for all prepaid services in the country today” and it will become much stronger and will be given much more avenue for growth in becoming part of MOL.

LoadCentral, which operates under the company name Uniwiz Trade Sales, Inc., distributes mobile air-time and game credits, using both scratch cards and electronic top-ups through an expanding and profitable network of some 7,400 convenience retailers and Internet cafes across the Philippines.

LoadCentral provides payment services for more than 1,500 popular online games. Prior to the acquisition, LoadCentral was a distributor of MOL’s range of payment services for online games. LoadCentral will continue to trade under its brand name after the MOL acquisition.

Founded in 2000, and headquartered in Malaysia, MOL is one of the largest payment service providers with more than 500,000 physical and virtual payment channels in Asia.

MOL, which acquired the pioneer social networking site Friendster in December 2009, has also announced several major partnerships with global leading Internet companies in the last year.—Rainier Allan Ronda

These strategic partnerships with companies such as Facebook, Paypal, and Zynga launched new monetization services for these companies in Asia.