Asia United Bank partners Alipay+ for e-wallet cross-border payments

• HelloMoney is the first e-wallet of a Philippine bank that can be used for cross-border payments.
• HelloMoney is to be made available and accepted first in South Korea and Japan.

Cross-border payments are increasingly becoming a necessity for many. While banks allow customers to make payments overseas, the high exchange rate often puts many off. As such, travelers often end up using cash or signing up for a local e-wallet provider to use their funds when overseas.

Fortunately, technology is now enabling the situation to improve. Today, cross-border payments are being simplified and are also able to support more payment methods. This includes the use of local e-wallets internationally.

A cross-border payment ecosystem not only enables simple usage of funds overseas, but also provides better exchange rates for users. Apart from that, it also offers higher security features that most users place importance in.

Alipay+ continues to simplify cross-border payments as it adds another partner to its ecosystem. Asia United Bank (AUB) has partnered with Alipay+ to enable its HelloMoney for cross-border payments and to provide a seamless payment experience for its users.

As the first Philippine bank with an e-wallet that can be used overseas, HelloMoney will become available first in South Korea and Japan. HelloMoney users can pay at local merchants who accept Alipay+ for shopping, dining, convenience stores, transportation, and other travel-related activities.

According to Wilfredo Rodriguez Jr., AUB executive vice president and head of Operations & Information Technology, AUB has been building a digital arsenal that includes pioneering initiatives and innovations — from end-to-end digital account opening to enabling clients to make banking easy through their mobile phone and merchants to sustain their businesses even with restricted mobility during the pandemic.

“With Alipay+’s global presence through its integration with local merchants worldwide, our HelloMoney users will have a wider reach in payment acceptance while ensuring a safe and secure digital transaction,” said Rodriguez Jr.

He added that over a million HelloMoney users will also be able to take advantage of more competitive exchange rates compared to prevailing market rates.

Introduced by Ant Group, Alipay+ is a suite of global cross-border digital payments and marketing solutions designed to enable businesses to process a wide range of mobile payment methods and better serve regional and global consumers through simple technical adaption.

Jia Hang, General Manager of Alipay+ Global Partnerships, Ant Group, said “AUB has been a long-term partner to Ant Group, and we are excited to extend the partnership further to enable its e-wallet’s cross-border operations through Alipay+. Despite it being a relatively young e-wallet, HelloMoney has garnered strong growth and adoption momentum among users. Through this partnership, users of HelloMoney can rely on the e-wallet when they travel overseas, too, without the hassle of carrying cash or changing currencies.”

Ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic, AUB launched HelloMoney so users could open an account without going to a physical branch and perform bank-to-bank fund transfers, buy prepaid loads, remit money through PeraPadala, pay via QR code, settle bills, withdraw via ATM, and shop using the HelloMoney’s very own virtual Mastercard. The launch was immediately followed by the release of Hello Pag-IBIG, the companion mobile app to the Pag-IBIG Loyalty Card Plus where cardholders can manage their account and perform banking transactions. In 2021, AUB introduced the HelloMoney Mastercard for online shopping.

HelloMoney posted double-digit growth in transactions even as lockdown restrictions have started to ease. As of October 2022, the number of HelloMoney transactions has reached 19 million, a 45% increase compared to last year, while the value of transactions reached P63 billion or 49% higher than in 2021.

Alipay+ offers unified global mobile payment and marketing solutions that connect merchants with multiple e-wallets and payment methods from different countries and regions by collaborating with global partners. Consumers can conveniently use their preferred local payment methods while transacting seamlessly in a different market and be able to enjoy marketing offers by the merchants through Alipay+.

---

---

---

---