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.
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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.
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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 study .
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.
