YouTrip, Singapore’s leading multi-currency wallet, has announced that it will be establishing an innovation lab in the country to fast-track its technology capabilities and product development to capture the rise of the multi-currency payments landscape. In this next phase of its business growth, YouTrip will be doubling its local workforce with over 50 new hires in Singapore across engineering and product development by 2022. 

The new positions will add on to YouTrip’s current headcount of close to 100 across all its locations.

Accelerating innovation for a new frontier of multi-currency payments 

The multi-currency payments landscape is gathering steam in Southeast Asia, with the cross-border payment market in Asia Pacific poised to reach $295 billion in 2021¹. Against that backdrop, YouTrip’s expanded workforce in the innovation lab will be crucial in driving the development of a new suite of multi-currency products and features to serve the changing needs of its users. This includes: 

• YouTrip Business, a new multi-currency corporate credit card aimed at helping companies of all sizes save money and time on cross-border payments. Compared to the consumer product, this new business card promises higher spending limits while transacting at the best exchange rates in 150+ currencies, with credit terms offered to selected business account users. YouTrip Business also enables companies to issue multi-currency cards to employees, and streamlines all expenses in one platform. 

• YouTrip brand refresh to elevate consumers’ multi-currency spending. This brand rehaul will reflect the fintech startup’s transformation from a travel wallet to a broader digital payments app that drives its mission of simplifying multi-currency spending. Beyond debuting a new brand identity, the YouTrip app will also be redesigned with new features such as a virtual card, an interactive exchange rates dashboard, YouTrip exclusive deals, and the ability to hold more popular currencies in their wallet – all aimed at delivering seamless payments in foreign currency. 

Both products are in its development stage and scheduled to be launched in early 2022. 

Caecilia Chu, Co-founder and CEO, YouTrip, said “Despite the travel standstill, we’ve continued to register a significant growth²in overseas online spending, further underscoring the importance of cross-border payments for consumers and businesses. With this shift in spending, our advancement in innovation to offer a wider suite of multi-currency is timely, and drives our goal of elevating the cross-border payment experience for our users in Singapore and the region. We are incredibly excited to embark on this next phase of our business growth and Singapore’s developed tech ecosystem provides the conducive conditions to propel this forward.” 

Propelling Singapore’s culture of innovation 

Singapore’s robust tech environment has enabled fintechs like YouTrip to propel technology adoption and innovation-driven growth in the financial sector. 

As the nation continues to strengthen its position as the region’s leading fintech hub, there is also a growing demand for more talents. Aligned with Singapore’s efforts to nurture future cohorts of fintech talents, YouTrip is also launching a Software Engineering Graduate Programme. This two-year training initiative will provide entry-level engineers with the core knowledge, mentorship and job rotations to master domain and technical expertise valuable for today’s fintech landscape. 

“Singapore is a special place to us, being the first market where we introduced YouTrip to the world. More importantly, it is also home to a thriving fintech ecosystem and a critical gateway to Southeast Asia’s extremely exciting digital economy. Located at the heart of it enables us to better serve our local customers, and to expand and scale our operations to the rest of the region. We look forward to driving the next generation of cross-border payment innovations, and to help build a stronger pipeline of talents that will fortify Singapore’s position as a global fintech hub,” said Chu. 

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¹ Frost & Sullivan: Growth Opportunities for Payment Companies in Asia-Pacific in 2021