BigPay, the Southeast Asian financial technology (fintech) company of Malaysia’s Capital A, has hinted at a possible launch in the Philippines later this year.
Zubin Rada Krishnan, acting Group CEO of BigPay, said the launch in the Philippines and Indonesia will follow its planned foray in Thailand in the latter part of 2023.
Krishnan, formerly Malaysia country head for BigPay, was recently appointed as acting Group CEO, succeeding Salim Dhanani, who stepped down in February to pursue a new opportunity outside the company.
BigPay now boasts 1.37 million active users with cards, reflecting an impressive year-over-year growth of nearly 17%. In 2022, the company introduced several regulated financial products and services in Malaysia, including BigPay Personal Loans, DuitNow QR, and DuitNow transfers.
Most notably, BigPay recently reached RM1 billion ($224 million) in Gross Transaction Value (GTV) through its international remittance feature.
Krishnan said his new task will include driving BigPay’s mission and achieving greater growth for the company. BigPay was founded in 2017.
“We have a stellar, talented team behind the business, who are instrumental in deepening and expanding our footprint in Malaysia and across ASEAN, with a planned launch in Thailand later this year, followed by Indonesia and the Philippines,” he added.
BigPay is widely accepted across over 64 million Visa merchants worldwide and users are able to withdraw cash from their BigPay account through any ATM overseas that accepts Visa.
Additionally, the platform offers various financial management features like real-time transaction tracking and budgeting tools.
BigPay’s planned launch in the Philippines comes as the country’s central bank, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), expressed confidence in achieving its financial inclusion digitalization target.
The BSP earlier set a goal of shifting 50% of total retail transactions to electronic channels and increasing the number of Filipino adults with bank accounts to 70% by this year.
BigPay, however, will be competing with existing payments and fintech startups in the country, which include GCash, Mynt, Voyager Innovations, and PayMongo among others.