We are living in a globalised world where the trade borders are shrinking day by day. South Asia is one of the fastest emerging markets in the global economy. The region boosts of a highly fluid and complex demand and supply system amongst its countries. A large number of people emigrate from their respective native countries for work purposes, and further send money back home.
Cross Border Payments Opportunity
Philippines, Vietnam & Indonesia were among the top countries in Asian Pacific Region in terms of inflows in 2015. As per World Bank data, global remittance market in 2016 was $575 billion, a 1.2% decline from 2015. However for Philippines, total remittance inflow grew by 4.9% YoY in 2016, as compared to 4.4% YoY growth in 2015, reaching $30 billion in 2016. It constituted as much as 9.8% of the total GDP of Philippines in 2016 highlighting the growing trend of human resource outflow in the region.
Rising Technology in Payments
The banking and remittance markets are not untouched by the increasing adoption in consumer facing mobile and technology solutions. Traditionally, users rely on services such as Western Union and Moneygram for overseas money transfer by paying a transaction fee. The rise of mobile wallets and other cashless payments solutions are bringing convenience in the hands of users.
Standing Out from the Crowd
Singapore-headquartered Texcent has built Paycent, a mobile wallet solution that also lets users do overseas payments. The idea was initiated in 2014 by its founders, Sumedha Goel and Svetlana Umarova when they saw the intricacies involved with expats on matters of sending money back to their home country or even paying utility bills on behalf of their family in their native country.
The app will be launched in Singapore & Philippines first and followed by several other Asian countries including – Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates within 2017.
A Single Mobile Solution to Make Things Easier
The product runs on a digital platform with two apps: a user-facing one and a merchant-facing solution.
Users can add funds, send and request payments, pay bills, split bills, top-up mobile through the app among other features all in real time basis 24×7. Users can make direct payments towards Paycent’s online and offline accredited merchants. Users can now pay utility bills like Water, Electricity, Cable etc (of their native country) on behalf of their family at the comfort of their home.
The funds can be added through credit cards, debit cards, bank transfers and over the counter through merchants and bank partners.
The merchant app can be used to generate invoices, among other standard wallet features. Paycent users can check real time exchange rates before actually making cross-border payments.
Current Progress & Growth Plans
Currently Texcent has its offices in 9 Asian countries including Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia & the UAE. Paycent plans to tap the expats living in Singapore, Hong Kong & the Middle East to become their preferred choice when sending funds or paying bills back home. It has developed an aggressive strategy to acquire over 20M + active users spread across Asia Pacific and the Middle East.
Future Impact
Paycent positions itself as a catalyst in growth for the banking and payments industry. It wants to help the segment which was not served prior and offer banking services by partnering with major banks in tandem. The development team is very agile and highly adaptive to today’s emerging technology, and as it innovates, it will bring mutual benefits to all its partners and the users at the same time.
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