YouTrip Inks Six-Year Partnership with Visa to Expand its Footprint in Southeast Asia

01/06/2021

 

 

YouTrip, Singapore's leading multi-currency mobile wallet has announced a six-year partnership with Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments, to accelerate its expansion into the rest of Southeast Asia, starting with Malaysia and Philippines. Currently launched in Singapore and Thailand, YouTrip has amassed over one million downloads to date. The announcement comes a year after YouTrip’s first regional expansion to Thailand 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 continues to establish a strong foothold in the multi-currency space online. Most recently, YouTrip has successfully pivoted to overseas e-commerce payment and recorded a three-fold increase in quarterly transactions, compared to the same period last year.

 

Taking on E-Commerce Boom and Travel Recovery in Southeast Asia

The partnership with Visa will fuel YouTrip’s mission to bring the best cross-border payment experience to the travellers in Southeast Asia. With rising disposable incomes and increased air connectivity, the region is part of Asia Pacific’s projected US$541million outbound tourism expenditure in 2030.

Consumers in Southeast Asia are also demonstrating a strong preference for digital payments, with close to 70 per cent expecting their usage of cashless payment methods to increase over the next 12 months, according to Visa’s Consumer Payment Attitudes study¹.

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 travellers. Unlike regional travel in other parts of the world such as Europe or the United States of America, travelling within Southeast Asia requires multi-currency spending. Coupled with the year-long 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 travellers with access to cross border payment solutions such as wholesale exchange rates and no foreign currency transaction fees in over 150 currencies.

Caecilia Chu, Co-Founder and CEO of YouTrip shares: “Our partnership with Visa will enable our continued growth to drive the next generation of payment 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.”

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$12.4bn and US$12.0bn from Malaysia and Philippines respectively in 2021. Additionally, Malaysia and the Philippines are two of the fastest-growing Southeast Asian countries in mobile payment adoption, from 17% to 40% and 14% to 45% respectively. The partnership presents YouTrip the opportunity to bring its hyper localised, ‘Truly No Fees’ proposition to a growing group of digitally adept travellers.

“In a short span of two years, we have established YouTrip as a leading multi-currency wallet in both Singapore and Thailand. With our strong foundation, we look forward to combining our market-winning expertise along with Visa’s payment innovations to the rest of Southeast Asia, starting with Malaysia and Philippines,” Kelvin Lam, Regional General Manager of YouTrip adds.

Matt Wood, Head of Digital Partnerships Asia Pacific, Visa said: “We are excited to work with YouTrip across Southeast Asia to provide consumers and businesses with a multi-currency payment solution that is ideal for international eCommerce and cross-border travel. Together, we look forward to bringing faster, safer and more convenient digital payments to people across the region.”

 

¹ Visa Consumer Payment Attitudes Study was conducted in August 2019 among 5,102 consumers across Southeast Asia

 

ABOUT YOUTRIP

YouTrip is a regional financial technology startup, dedicated to creating the best mobile financial services for travellers 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.

For more information, please visit www.you.co

 

ABOUT VISA

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is the world’s leader in digital payments. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, reliable and secure payment network - enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. The company’s relentless focus on innovation is a catalyst for the rapid growth of connected commerce on any device, and a driving force behind the dream of a cashless future for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analog to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce.

For more information, visit www.visa.com.ph