Alibaba-owned online merchant Lazada wants to boost its financial services business in a bid to gain an edge in South East Asia's competitive online retail market, the company's CEO told CNBC. Lazada is a Singapore-based e-commerce company which serves markets such as Indonesia and Thailand. It hosts a platform which allows merchants to sell into the countries where it operates. Financial services could become a big part of its future as the firm looks to placing more resources there, said Pierre Poignant, the CEO who took the helm in December.

Through our data, we will be able more precisely assess the loans ... the future is to be more efficient, faster and bigger. Pierre Poignant CEO of Lazada

Lazada — which turned seven on Wednesday — operates an electronic wallet that lets people buy and sell products on its platform. But Poignant is thinking about expanding that product range. "The next steps are financing, more rewards to our wallets, so we will continue to invest in that direction," Poignant told CNBC in an interview at the Boao Forum in China. Last year, Lazada teamed with small businesses financing platform, Finaxar, to offer credit lines to small and medium business on its platform. Poignant said the next step could be more financing products to make loans more efficient. "Through our data, we will be able more precisely assess the loans. So I think, in a way, the future is to be more efficient, faster and bigger, that's one part," Poignant said. "Second part (is), we will venture in other parts of financing. For example, something which is very, I think, promising, is trade financing across countries which we will also look into."