Myanmar-headquartered social media and entertainment company MySquar acquired long-term partner MyPay Myanmar for £2 million, as it continues preparations to launch mobile money services in the country.

The acquisition will be partly funded by the issue of new shares in Mysquar, a development also announced today (20 June), and will be paid as a mixture of cash and shares.

MySquar provides a wide number of app-based services in Myanmar and last month signed deals with two partners to provide the backbone infrastructure for a forthcoming mobile money launch.

MyPay Myanmar already provides limited mobile financial services in the country and is in the process of attempting to acquire a licence from Mayanmar’s central bank to operate full mobile payment services. In 2015, it signed a partnership with Mysquar to bundle cash transfer facilities into the latter’s chat application.

In a statement, MySquar said the acquisition would streamline its development of smartphone payments systems, adding the forthcoming service was: “anticipated to provide substantial revenues going forward.”

It added: “With few bank branches, Myanmar is a largely cash-based society and the company believes that smartphone payments will be an intrinsic part of the country’s modernisation and commercialisation.”

Last month, Mysquar estimated less than 20 per cent of the population of Myanmar was able to access traditional banking services, while mobile penetration is relatively high.