Fintech company TransferWise announced today that it has enabled international money transfers to six mobile wallets in Indonesia, the Philippines and Bangladesh.
These six mobile wallets are GoPay by GoJek (Indonesia), OVO (Indonesia), DANA (Indonesia), GCash (Philippines), PayMaya (Philippines), and bKash (Bangladesh), and they collectively serve over 150 million users.
With this launch, TransferWise’s 6 million users in 45 countries will be able to send money to users of these six wallets with just the name and mobile number of the recipient.
This move is part of a “major effort” by TransferWise to expand its network so that it can serve bank account holders and mobile wallet users in Asia.
According to the press release, the share of people without bank accounts in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Bangladesh ranges between 52% and 68%, and typically receive money from abroad using services with cash pick-ups.
With TransferWise’s new service, they will be able to receive funds in their mobile wallets at TransferWise’s global average cross-border fee of 0.74% per transaction, which is said to be “up to 5 times cheaper than cash pick-up services”.
TransferWise pointed out that in particular, the “large numbers of migrants from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Bangladesh living in other parts of Asia and on other continents” will find this service especially useful for sending money home.
Mr Kristo Käärmann, Co-Founder and CEO of TransferWise, said: “We are now one step closer to our mission: Money without borders – instant, convenient, transparent and eventually free.”
He adds: “The rise of mobile wallets is another example of an ongoing revolution in finance, where nonbanks are providing as good if not better service and user experience compared to banks. Asia is at the forefront of this revolution that will see billions benefiting from increased competition and innovation.”
