YouTrip, Singapore’s leading multi-currency mobile wallet, has announced a six-year partnership with Visa to accelerate its expansion into the rest of Southeast Asia, starting with Malaysia and the Philippines.
“Our partnership with Visa will enable our continued growth to drive the next generation of innovation of cross-border payments. We are incredibly excited for the opportunities ahead to serve millions of consumers in Southeast Asia and empower them with the solutions they deserve,” said YouTrip Co-Founder and CEO Caecilia Chu in a press statement.
Regional expansion
YouTrip is a regional financial technology startup, dedicated to creating the best mobile financial services for travelers across Southeast Asia by simplifying overseas spending and creating a fuss-free travel experience. YouTrip first launched in Singapore in 2018 and subsequently in Thailand in 2019.
YouTrip’s first regional expansion to Thailand was in partnership with Kasikornbank, one of Thailand’s largest banks with over 13.9 million online banking customers as of November 2020.
Despite the pandemic, YouTrip has continued to establish a strong foothold in the multi-currency space online. Most recently, YouTrip has successfully pivoted to overseas ecommerce payment and recorded a threefold increase in quarterly transactions, compared to the same period last year.
Travel recovery
Consumers in Southeast Asia are demonstrating a strong preference for digital payments, with close to 70% expecting their usage of cashless payment methods to increase over the next 12 months, according to Visa’s Consumer Payment Attitudes study.
With regional travel poised to be the first step towards international travel recovery, this presents YouTrip with an opportunity to solve a unique pain point for Southeast Asian travelers. Unlike regional travel in other parts of the world such as Europe or the United States of America, traveling within Southeast Asia requires multi-currency spending. Coupled with the yearlong pent-up demand for travel and cross-border payment, this puts YouTrip in good stead for further expansion. Leveraging on Visa’s global network of 70 million merchant locations worldwide, YouTrip aims to enable Southeast Asia travelers with access to cross-border payment solutions such as wholesale exchange rates and no foreign currency transaction fees in over 150 currencies.
YouTrip looks to Malaysia and the Philippines as the next potential markets in the next six to 12 months. The two markets present massive untapped potential with outbound travel expenditure expected to reach US$12.4 billion and US$12.0 billion from Malaysia and Philippines, respectively, in 2021.
