The Southeast Asian super apps Grab and GoTo, long archrivals in some of the world’s most competitive digital services markets, are once again considering a merger. In contrast to previous merger talks earlier in the decade, this time the discussions include a proposal to give the Indonesian sovereign wealth fund Danantara a minority stake in the merged entity, with special rights over the Indonesian arm of the new business.
Danantara, launched by President Prabowo Subianto this year and seen as representing government interests, would have special rights in areas like drivers’ pay. According to Citigroup analysts, Danantara’s role in the merger talks signals an endorsement from Jakarta. Yet given abortive previous merger talks, “the possibility of failure or delay remains significant,” analyst Ferry Wong said in a research note.
Late to the Game
Grab and GoTo have flirted with a merger for almost six years: they first discussed the idea back in February 2020. At that time, regulatory concerns aside, it just might have worked. Investor enthusiasm for super apps had not yet peaked, and the two companies had burned a lot less cash.
If the deal had gone through, it would have created a juggernaut that probably would have dominated ride hailing and food delivery in most key Southeast Asian markets, while the combined fintech operations would have been formidable. However, GoTo ultimately instead merged with Tokopedia in a deal that likely appealed more to Indonesian regulators.
Yet nearly six years later, neither Grab nor GoTo has lived up to the hype surrounding them. While some investment bank analysts continue to cheer these companies on, insisting that sustained profitability is just around the corner, their performance in public markets tells a different story. Grab went public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in Dec. 2021 in a SPAC deal with a grossly inflated valuation of US$40 billion. Its stock has lost 55% of its value since then and trades at less than US$7 a share. GoTo was listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in April 2022 at a valuation of US$28 billion. Since then, the stock has fallen about 83% and now trades at just Rp67 a share.
Some Fintech Upside
While both Grab’s and GoTo’s fintech units have performed reasonably well, competition in the Indonesian market is intense. A union of Grab and GoTo might create larger payments and digital banking units that could build scale faster, though it would depend on how the deal was structured.
At present, Gojek (the predecessor of GoTo from before the merger with Tokopedia) has a 22% stake in the Indonesian lender Bank Jago, while Grab and Singtel have a 16.1% stake in PT Bank Superbank Indonesia and a 90% stake in the e-wallet Ovo. The Singaporean company also has undisclosed stakes in the state-backed e-wallet LinkAja and the digital investment platform Bareska.
In 2024, before the current round of talks between the two Southeast Asian super apps, Australian investment firm Macquarie estimated cost savings of 50% from a merger. Even if that estimate is optimistic, a merging of the two companies reduces the need to heavily subsidize customers and drivers in the ride-hailing and food delivery segments—a constant source of pressure on margins.
In addition, access to Grab’s many financial services businesses in Indonesia might create e-commerce synergies that would make the new entity more competitive vis-à-vis Sea Group’s Shopee—though GoTo only controls 25% of Tokopedia following TikTok’s acquisition of 75% of the Indonesian e-commerce firm.
Another possibility is the establishment of a regional digital bank alliance between Grab’s GxS digital bank joint ventures in Singapore and Malaysia and Gojek-backed Bank Jago in Indonesia. According to Euromonitor International, “this pan-regional digital ecosystem would facilitate cross-border transactions, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) challenging regional incumbents, including OCBC, and other digital challenges such as [Ant Group-backed] ANEXT Bank.”
Super App Twilight
A Grab-GoTo merger would have clear benefits for the two longtime rivals. Their respective ecosystems are vast, and combining them would create, at a minimum, a dominant player in the ride-hailing and food-delivery segments. Financial analysts estimate the new entity would control 85% to 90% of those respective markets.
Benefits for their fintech businesses would be less striking. Unlike ride hailing and food delivery, digital financial services is a highly fragmented business in both Indonesia and broader Southeast Asia. This is one reason why, despite the reach of both the Grab and GoTo ecosystems, both companies still rely on ride hailing and food delivery for the bulk of their revenue. In the third quarter of 2025, fintech accounted for just 10.3% of Grab’s revenue, while for GoTo it is about 25%.
At the same time, the Grab and GoTo fintech businesses have not grown organically in the same manner as ride hailing and food delivery. Rather, they are a mash-up of the e-wallets the companies developed along with the different banks and other financial services businesses in which they have invested. For that reason, a merger could be complicated from a financial regulatory perspective and would not result in a dominant, unified digital financial services platform.
Finally, the super app concept that Grab and GoTo have long pitched as their reason for entering financial services has not come to fruition. Users of the ride-hailing and food-delivery businesses do sometimes cross over to digital financial services, but the effect has been less dramatic than what the companies envisioned. As it turns out, customers in Southeast Asia often prefer pure-play digital financial services platforms.
Low-Hanging Fruit Remains
The good news is that irrespective of the ultimate result of current merger discussions, both Grab’s and GoTo’s respective digital banking ventures are growing briskly.
As Grab noted in its third-quarter earnings report, in the Indonesian market, Superbank continued to drive strong growth, with deposit customers growing over 20% sequentially to reach an all-time high at the end of September. “This growth is driven by innovative products such as OVO Nabung, which enables users to benefit from the seamless payments experience using the OVO wallet, while enjoying the yield of a Superbank savings account,” Grab said.
As for GoTo, in the third quarter, financial services revenue rose to 1.5 trillion rupiah, up 55% year-on-year, driven by expanding consumer loans and steady growth in payment transactions. In September, the e-wallet GoPay exceeded 500 million transactions for the first time.
Despite facing intense competition, both companies will continue to have significant market opportunities in Indonesia given the country’s vast financial inclusion needs. Indeed, despite all the recent growth in its fintech sector, Indonesia still has about 137 million adults limited access to financial services. Not a small number by any measure.