Asia's burgeoning e-commerce industry has seen many payments companies race to invest in customers' appetite for digital transactions by offering differentiated services, sealing mergers and acquisitions and spending top dollar on marketing.
Payoneer, a payments processing company based in New York, steered toward a more niche market by targeting small businesses selling globally. That strategy has seen the company register triple-digit growth in payment volume in Asia since 2012, according to data seen by CNBC.
Globally, the company's payment transaction volume in 2016 grew 86.2 percent to $7.82 billion, whereas Asia saw a massive 153 percent increase on-year.
"There is a huge opportunity to empower small businesses, wherever they are in the world, to be able to pay and get paid," Patrick de Courcy, head of Asia Pacific at Payoneer, told CNBC.
Payoneer has three segments of focus in Asia — cross-border payments for businesses that sell on global marketplaces like Alibaba and Lazada; vacation rentals on platforms like China's Tujia; and digital freelancers.
The company works by processing customer payments on a marketplace and then doling out the money to sellers. Payoneer has introduced new payment services in Japan and China, where international businesses can sell into these markets and collect funds in local currencies with ease.
Payoneer belongs to a relatively smaller group of companies that focus more on the business-to-business side of the massive payments sector. Direct interactions with consumers are often limited. Its competitors include BlueSnap, PayU and Dutch company Adyen.
Earlier this month, Adyen, which counts the likes of Netflix, Facebook and Uber as clients, announced it processed $90 billion in transactions in 2016.
As Asia's largest e-commerce market, China is a target for most companies doing business in the region. But competition from domestic players is stiff in China. De Courcy says Payoneer's strategy there is to build partnerships with companies throughout the e-commerce ecosystem — including manufacturers, sellers, logistics and providers of other auxiliary services.
There's growing interest in China among small businesses outside of the country, according to de Courcy. He said that interest led Payoneer to set up the local currency payment option in China.
Payoneer now has offices in Tokyo, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Manila, Bangalore, Seoul and Hong Kong and it is looking to set up more offices around the region. Globally, it has raised about $234 million in funding and de Courcy said there are no current plans for an initial public offering.