Sea Eyes Fintech Growth: Is Monee the Next Revenue Pillar?

Sea Limited SE is capitalizing on fintech momentum, as Monee, its digital financial services division, is showing strong prospects. Monee delivered a standout performance in the first quarter of 2025, with revenues surging 57.6% year over year to $787.1 million, outpacing both Shopee and Garena, which posted gains of 28.3% and 8.2%, respectively. This rapid growth was fueled by a $5.8 billion loan book and strong traction in emerging markets. Monee’s expansion into Brazil, one of South America’s most underserved credit markets, signals a strategic pivot toward sustainable growth.

Now among Southeast Asia’s largest unsecured consumer lenders, Monee draws most of its revenues from consumer and SME credit. In the last reported quarter, SE added more than 4 million first-time borrowers, with active loan users exceeding 28 million, representing 50% year-over-year growth. Despite this rapid expansion, Monee has maintained a stable portfolio health, with a 90-day non-performing loans ratio of 1.1%.

As the division scales, the company continues to prioritize risk management through a proactive, data-driven approach. Deep market penetration and an expanding user base are helping Monee draw on real-time insights from within the SE ecosystem to monitor repayment behaviors and adjust credit policies accordingly. The division is now moving beyond payments and credit to banking, investment and insurance to build a full-fledged financial services platform.

Monee’s growth is increasingly driven by its integration with Shopee via SPL (Shopee PayLater), as well as rising traction in non-Shopee channels, particularly its BCL (Buy-Consume-Later) and SPL offline offerings. Together, these trends highlight Monee’s balance of ecosystem synergy and independent growth potential.

SE Faces Fintech Pressure From Key Rivals

Sea faces strong competition in digital financial services from Grab Financial GRAB and PayPal PYPL.

Grab Financial, through GrabFin and OVO, provides digital payment, lending and insurance services across Southeast Asia. These offerings target drivers, merchants and customers using Grab’s platform scale. As On-Demand GMV accelerates and fintech adoption deepens, Grab Financial is emerging as a competitive fintech leader in one of the world’s most dynamic digital economies.

PayPal operates one of the most trusted and globally recognized digital payments ecosystems, with 436 million active accounts and $417.2 billion in total payment volume (TPV) as of March 31, 2025. Venmo, the company’s peer-to-peer payment platform, continues to drive significant TPV growth. PayPal’s edge lies in its brand trust, merchant network and fraud prevention tech. To expand its share in online checkouts and in-person transactions, the company is scaling tools like PayPal Open and Verifone integrations.

SE’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Shares of Sea have risen 44.6% year to date compared with the Zacks Internet – Software industry’s growth of 11.2%.

From a valuation standpoint, SE appears overvalued, trading at a forward 12-month price-to-earnings ratio of 30.56, higher than the sector’s 25.96X. SE carries a Value Score of D.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for SE’s 2025 earnings is pegged at $4.23 per share, which increased 7.4% over the past 60 days. This marks strong 151.79% growth in earnings compared with fiscal 2024.

SE stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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