Qwikwire

Qwikwire empowers individuals and businesses in the Philippines to collect and accept payments from overseas and within the country, even if they don’t have a bank account.

 

Background

The Philippines is one of the dozen countries in the world with a considerable diaspora. Around 12M are living and working overseas (4M in the United States alone). The Philippines is also the third largest and fastest growing freelancing market in the world with around 500,000 active freelancers.

This situation makes the Philippines one of the largest recipient of payments from overseas, from clients paying their freelancers to Filipino expats paying for mortgages, cars, utilities, rent, insurance, medical expenses, and their kids’ tuition.

Additionally, ecommerce in the Philippines has been growing at over 40% per year for the last 5 years. Hundreds of new merchant websites go live every year that need online payment processing but do not qualify for a full-fledged credit-card merchant account.

 

Market

Last year, S$33Bn was remitted back to the Philippines from overseas, and S$15Bn of that money went to payments. The general breakdown of payments is as follows: S$5Bn went to paying for mortgage, S$6Bn for medical expenses, S$3.5Bn for school tuition, car payments, utilities, and S$500M for freelancer and cross-border ecommerce payments. By 2015, it is estimated that the country will receive S$44Bn in remittance and S$20Bn will go to payments.

 

Team

Scott, Jason, and Ray are friends from college and hold degrees in Corporate Finance and Economics from California State University – San Jose, in Silicon Valley. Bing has been a long time friend from Manila. They have 6 years experience in working, debating, drinking, and getting stuff done together. They have a combined 15 years of experience in the remittance/payments field and web app development.

• Ray Refundo – Started MoneyTran, online money-remittance service that allows overseas Filipinos to send cash to their relatives back in the PH using credit and debit cards. Ray has the know-how in regulations and industry money logistics.
• Bing Tan – Experienced in app development for fintech and payments related platforms (PDIC, Bancnet, Western Union).
• Scott Yu – Was a Senior Auditor for Deloitte but has learned enough coding (in a few months) to help Bing in product development.
• Jason Foldi – Has worked in Finance and has years of experience in digital and social media marketing from his previous works.

 

Media Kit

Upon request; email [email protected]