The Iranian PSP Asan Pardakht (AP) has been in pursuit for an IPO for some time until it become the 500th Iranian company to go public in Tehran Stock Exchange just 2 days ago.
The Payment company founded in 2009 quickly became the market dominant in varies payments services in utilities & bills, mobile top ups, Internet packages, charity donation and more. It has recently been developing its mobile payment solution in form of NFC and QR code payments with stores and offline merchants. The company has had more than 3 million users on USSD and about 1.5 million mobile app downloads. The company also has +600 full-time employees and a couple hundreds of promoters.
As one of the 13 companies that are authorized to act as a PSP in Iran, Asan Pardakht has also initiated its POS terminal distribution which also generates QR codes for its mobile payment solution via the AP app. According to BoursNews, out of the 40 million transactions that go through the 12 Iranian PSPs, AP alone handles 26 million transactions daily.
On Monday October 17th, 10 million shares of the company were open for trade in TSE (Tehran Stock Exchange) with a price per share of 9990 Rials. 10% of the company’s equity is now being traded in TSE valuing the company at IPO on $29 Million (999 Billion Rials). Asan Pardakht is the second company to IPO in the current Persian year.
The PSP has various share holders including Keshavarzi Bank, Novin Hi-Tech Solutions and the Refah Fund. Keshavarzi bank was one of the major share holders of Asan Pardakht with 40% share of the company.
This event marks a new pinpoint in Iran’s startup and tech scene. Asan Pardakht is now the first FinTech company to IPO in Iran. Though this IPO is considered as a huge news in Iran’s tech landscape, it still does not guarantee Asan Pardakht’s market leadership as new competitors are coming in hot on mobile payment and other payment services.
Leave a Reply