Online shopping in the Caribbean is being made easier through a strategic partnership between WiPay, a technology solutions company and e-commerce outfit,and CaribShopper.

The partnership brings together e-commerce and a digital payment platform to transact commerce internationally, at the click of button. While details of the partnership are not known, what the Jamaica Observer can confirm is that WiPay has made a capital injection in CaribShopper.

CaribShopper is an e-commerce solution that gives manufacturers throughout the region a platform to successfully sell their products internationally. CaribShopper’s marketplace will showcase Caribbean foods, apparel, arts & crafts, jewellery, etc, allowing manufacturers to reach more consumers, sell more products, and deliver goods with ease.

WiPay is Trinidad-based with a presence throughout the Caribbean, including an office in Jamaica. The company simplifies e-commerce and is at the forefront of digital e-commerce, allowing anyone connected to the Internet to move money quickly, safely and easily for both banked and unbanked users.

The announcement of the partnership was made at last week’s Regional Investments and Capital Markets Conference 2020 of the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE). There will be an official launch of WiPay in Jamaica in February and the official launch of CaribShopper’s new partnership with WiPay in April.

Sunday Finance spoke with Aldwyn Wayne, founder and CEO of WiPay, and CaribShopper’s CEO Kadion Preston, who both dodged answering questions about the partnership. They say details of the partnership will be made available in the coming days, but to date no information has been forthcoming.

However, speaking with online lifestyle magazine, Haute Lifestyle, Wayne and Preston spoke about the partnership which is being executed through part-investment.

Describing the partnership as inevitable, Wayne told Haute Lifestyle, “I’m here to perform a number of functions while I’m here in Jamaica as the CEO of WiPay. But nothing gives me more pleasure than announcing a big step for the WiPay Group in the region and that’s the part-investment in the region’s very own CaribShopper. I am proud to announce that we will be working alongside CaribShopper to bring a new quality of service to the region and Diaspora population at large.”

CaribShopper co-founder and CEO, Kadion Preston points out that the partnership with WiPay is more than an investment, noting that,”the WiPay/CaribShopper partnership will bridge the gap between regional businesses and lovers of Caribbean culture worldwide, while extending the growth of Caribbean-made products”.

“We are pretty excited with this partnership; it has been a long time in the works. As CaribShopper pivoted in 2019, we are now focusing on making Caribbean-made products available to customers in the US and eventually Canada and UK markets. Now that we’ve formalised our partnership and are moving forward, we look forward to the upcoming launch of the marketplace that will promote the growth of Caribbean-made products,” Preston said.

WiPay has seen explosive growth in Jamaica since 2019 when its bill payment product was introduced to the market, as the third Caribbean country, where the service is available. The company has also seen growth on a regional scale where Republic Bank acquired a 19.99 per cent stake.

WiPay is among four tech companies that will launch by mid-year an initial public offer (IPO) for security tokens to be listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE).

Turning to its impending tokenised Jamaican IPO, WiPay is already pointing to significant savings in costs. The IPO would be executed using the tokenised platform developed by Blockstation, a leading Canadian FinTech company which last April signed a historic master agreement with the JSE to enable live trading of digital assets and security tokens on the local stock market.

Using the Blockstation platform, WiPay will be publicly traded as a digital asset on the junior market of the JSE. For WiPay, going public with a tokenised IPO through Blockstation will result in lower costs, faster timelines, and streamlined workflow at every stage when compared to a regular IPO.

Through the tokenised IPO WiPay will be able connect with investment brokers instantly as well as able to have centralised review and approval by stock exchange and regulators. In terms of issuance of digital assets and tokens, the Blockstation platform ensures that there is no risk of oversubscription, affords real time reconciliation, settlement and reports, and offers fully digital share distribution.