Banks in Korea or other intermediaries (airports) charge high fees for currency exchanges. Thankfully there are currency exchange startups in Korea looking to disrupt this sector. Mobile payment services like Naver Pay, Kakao Pay, and Toss have already cut costs and commissions for consumers in Korea. However, this article will focus on startups looking to offer a better service than existing foreign exchanges.
Korean Fintech Startups Mobiletoong operates a mobile exchange service called Travel Wallet. Travel Wallet solves the issue of offline currency exchange, which has high fees. Through Travel Wallet, the amount can be exchanged at a customized, low exchange rate from prepared check cards, and payment of the card can be made from abroad. These currency requests are available 24/7. In addition, the Travel Wallet offers foreign currency payments and foreign currency transfers in addition to foreign currency exchange. These services are available for nine countries, 30 banks, and 60,000 branch offices in Southeast Asia. They were able to raise $6.2 million from their Series A round.
CashMallow provides an app-based platform for foreign currency exchange services. They offer a minimal 1% service charge for all currency exchanges. Therefore, users can exchange their foreign currency anywhere and at any time. Cashmallow has affiliate stores where customers can apply for cash withdrawals. Local currencies are withdrawn without additional service fees. Users can withdraw foreign currencies through QR code scanning. The app is available for Android and IOS platforms. Cashmallow is now available in Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
Switchwon is one of the few currency startups in Korea that offers a non-face-to-face online exchange platform for currency exchange. They offer lower fees than banks in Korea, and regardless of the type of membership on Switchwon, they guarantee the lowest foreign exchange fees. The exchanged currency will be remitted to the user’s bank account before 4:30 pm on the same day of the order upon transfer of the funds to the designated Switchwon bank account. Best of all, users can sync their existing bank accounts to Switchwon without having to create a new account on the app.
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