"10 Years of TravelPay Experience... Opening a Second Chapter with SocialPay Startup" [Financial Insider]

Kim Hyung-woo, CEO of Travelwallet
"Companion Platform Social Pay... Ensuring Safety and Manners"
"Entering B2B with Cloud Payment Business"

“Anyone want to watch Olympic soccer in Nice, France?” “Anyone want to have a meal in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia?”

TravelWallet, a fintech (finance + technology) company that grew through its currency exchange and payment service ‘TravelPay,’ has opened its second chapter with ‘SocialPay.’ SocialPay is a platform within the TravelWallet application (app) for travelers seeking companions, launched on the 28th of last month. Only users who have entered information such as bank account, ID, and contact details can participate, reducing the risk of exposure to crime. A system similar to the personal trust rating system ‘Manner Temperature’ used by the secondhand trading platform Danggeun Market is also planned to be introduced. The split payment function, which facilitates Dutch pay, has already been patented.

Kim Hyung-woo, CEO of TravelWallet, said in an interview with Asia Economy on the 11th at TravelWallet’s headquarters in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, “If 2 to 3 million people gather on SocialPay, it will grow much larger than TravelPay, in an unimaginable way, and a so-called ‘snowball’ effect will start rolling.” He added, “It is common for groups to come together to increase purchase units and lower prices, but usually the supplier prepares each product one by one. SocialPay is different in that if the supplier just sets up the platform, users themselves find various products such as group discounts and shared transportation.”

Kim Hyung-woo, CEO of Travel Wallet, is being interviewed at the Travel Wallet headquarters in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on the 11th.

Using the know-how accumulated from TravelPay, they have also broken into the B2B (business-to-business) market. They provide cloud-based payment solutions to financial companies. For example, if a financial company needs 50 billion KRW to overhaul its entire IT system to launch a foreign exchange service, TravelWallet implements the infrastructure by applying functions within its own cloud without touching the existing network. CEO Kim explained the business model, saying, “Instead of charging an initial setup cost of 50 billion KRW, we earn about 0.5% commission per transaction.”

The B2B business accounted for 10% of total sales last year, is expected to reach about 20% this year, and 50% next year. Kim said, “As word spread that we process 300 billion KRW in overseas payments monthly and 10 million transactions flawlessly, we began collaborating with 10 domestic and international financial companies.” He continued, “We are also showing results in recently established subsidiaries in Japan and the United States, and we want to establish ourselves as an IT outsourcing company for the financial sector. My dream is that in about 30 years, we will stand shoulder to shoulder with global IT companies like Oracle and Cisco.”

As a senior fintech CEO with stable revenue, Kim advised younger challengers, “Don’t listen too much to others.” He said, “The ‘Dollar Box’ we recently launched with KakaoBank is a platform where multiple financial companies collaborate from scratch. It would be even better if a second TravelWallet is born from this. I have high expectations for those who want to create absurd services that the older generation cannot understand. You will hear many criticisms like ‘That business won’t work.’ Especially in the fintech industry, there are hundreds of reasons why something is impossible. But if you are an entrepreneur, you have to be different from the existing ways to survive. TravelWallet was rejected by the entire financial sector 10 years ago, but it eventually succeeded, didn’t it?”