NFC tag-based information transfer solution startup Allink Co., Ltd announced it has signed an MOU with Global Financial Technology L.L.C. (GFT), a subsidiary of Oman’s largest telecommunications company, Omantel, to penetrate the Middle East mobile services market. The agreement comes merely 2 weeks after the two companies’ initial meeting at MWC 2022 in Barcelona.
GFT is leading payment service provider in Oman and the operator of Lamma, a unified communication platform and eWallet service. GFT and Allink will initially collaborate on enabling in-store mobile NFC payments for Lamma users.
“We instantly recognized the value of Allink’s technology in its ability to provide an elegant payment experience far superior to QR and enabling it without requiring heavy software integration. With Allink’s technology, Lamma users can make in-store contactless payments even with their iPhones and merchants can accept NFC payment without having to invest in costly EMV terminals,” said Mr. Abdulaziz Al Rawahi, GFT’s software engineer turned CEO.
Following the rollout of NFC payment service, the two companies plan to expand their collaboration to launch other mobile services such as entry/access, mobility/transit, ATM, event ticketing, and tableside ordering to further solidify Lamma’s position as the super app for Oman.
Allink Founder and CEO Kyungdong Kim remarked, “We could not have found a better partner for our first entry into markets beyond Korea. As the leading super app, Lamma shares with us the vision of leveraging technology to provide the ultimate user experience for a variety of mobile services, all powered by Allink.”
About GFT
Global Financial Technology L.L.C (GFT) was officially launched at the beginning of 2022, with its coming Fintech app which is approved by the Central Bank of Oman. GFT is a payment service provider which also has business integration (shopping). With the recent payment features through the Lamma eWallet system, subscribers will be able to transfer money and pay their different kinds of bills. As we are focusing on being a Super App, GFT believes in diversifying their platform with GFT’s own services or establishing tie-ups with third-party businesses and getting more engagement of the customers with higher value by offering services that are not in our core businesses for our subscribers to shop from. GFT is to connect an ecosystem of other applications to have one stop to fulfill all consumer needs. GFT focuses on empowering users and businesses with products that are superiorly designed, remarkably efficient, and wonderfully digitalized. GFT will provide merchants and end-users with a range of payment solutions in order to expand and enrich the payment experience. Our current main business services include the Lamma platform which is a unified communication platform and the Lamma eWallet. In the near future, GFT will be offering payment gateway solutions to business owners in terms of simplified payment gateway – eCommerce solutions. Further to that, GFT will be adding value to their users and merchants in terms of integrating with different services locally and internationally in order to enhance and increase the value of the solutions provided. POS machines for merchants services, card tokenization, financial fraud detection.
About Allink
Founded in 2019 by a former Samsung Pay executive, a life-long software developer, and a practicing patent attorney, Allink provides essential device-to-device information transfer solution for enabling mobile services through its patented technology. It has received investment from category leaders including Naver, E-Land, Lotte, Shinhan, and Mirae Asset Securities. Allink garnered attention following the launch of Mirae Asset Pay, the first mobile wallet to enable NFC payment for iPhones in Korea. Since the launch, Allink has rapidly expanded acceptance locations in Korea by partnering with leading franchises such as 7-Eleven, Ediya, Korea’s largest coffee chain, and CU, the largest convenience store franchise. Beyond Korea, Allink established US operations in 2021 and hired a CEO to spearhead international expansion efforts.
