Challenger bank has popped up in US and European market. Recently, Singapore had a taste of it through YouTrip. The firm is one of the earliest challenger bank in the region with $25.5 M from its’ first funding round.
Insignia Ventures Partners led as a sole investor in the seed round. YouTrip plan to use the fund to expand further on the Southeast Asian market. Southeast Asia is a very prospective region, perfect for the firm.
The region has bigger number of internet users than USA. It also recorded a speedy growth of online transaction. Part led by mega startups such as Grab that values $14 B, Tokopedia with $7 B, and Go-Jek with $9.5 B.
Caecilia Chu, once a Harvard Student like Grab and Go-jek founders, co-founded YouTrip in August 2018. Being a former banker, it frustrated her to see foreigners having to exchange large sum of money to travel in Singapore. And lose it, often.
Credit cards are also not a good option even when the exchange rate is bad. Credit cards charge additional transaction fee that can be suffocating after several times.
How Does YouTrip Works?
Partnered with Mastercard and EZ-Link, YouTrip provide a smarter and cheaper overseas transaction. Customers from more than 150 currencies can pay using card or its mobile app. And it is without cross-border transaction fees, foreign exchange fees nor card company fees.
There is also an in-app money exchanger. It is available for ten major currencies including SGD, USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, CHF, HKF, NZD, SEK, AUD. To make it more perfect, it is available for 24/7.
Not only those currencies, YouTrip also uses Mastercard wholesale exchange rates for the rest 140+ countries. And through Mastercard, it its available for cashless payments in-store and online, anywhere in the world. With no minimum balance required in an account.
