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Singapore, 4 November 2022
ThitsaWorks, in partnership with INFITX (previously ModusBox) and Visa, was awarded the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Financial Sector Technology and Innovation (FSTI) Proof of Concept (POC) grant on 29-June-2022. The FSTI POC grant supports the experimentation, development, and dissemination of nascent innovative technologies in the financial services sector.
While many remittance options exist for overseas migrant workers in Singapore, options to reach rural areas where many workers’ families live are complicated, expensive, and slow. Additionally, friends and family who only have accounts with MFIs and rural banks cannot receive direct payments.
Together with Rapyd and Lucy, ThitsaWorks, INFITX, and Visa have introduced the Inclusive Cross-Border Remittances Project to make remittances for Singapore-to-Philippines corridor more affordable and efficient. The project aims to connect small financial institutions to real-time payment networks to enable fast, convenient, and ubiquitous cross-border remittances. Our solution couples an inclusive RTP network, which creates the foundation for faster payments, with an alias resolution service to facilitate transmission.
In this regard, ThitsaWorks, INFITX, and Visa have started a proof-of-concept for a Visa Direct-Mojaloop solution connected to MFIs and rural banks on a new inclusive subnational network: i2i (by UBX) in the Philippines. The POC is initially established between Singapore and the Philippines but is replicable to any receiving country with an RTP network and open banking frameworks.
Mr. Nyi Nyein Aye, CEO and Co-founder of ThitsaWorks, said, "We are happy to be a part of the Inclusive Cross-Border Remittance Project which will make remittance cheaper and faster for the Singapore-to-Philippines corridor. I believe this project will positively affect the remittance challenges that many overseas migrant workers in Singapore undergo, which we witness daily. Our ThitsaWorks team is also very excited to work closely with prominent financial industry participants and learn from each other."
Mr. Steve Haley, Director of Market Development and Partnerships from the Mojaloop Foundation, stated, "The Mojaloop Foundation is thrilled to join the Cross-Border Remittance Project. The potential of emerging economies to innovate and deploy efficient, interoperable domestic and cross-border applications shapes our mission to enhance financial inclusion worldwide. We believe this project will significantly impact achieving the goal we share with our partner organizations."
Dr. Warren D. Carew, Managing Director of INFITX, stated, "We are excited to be the project's technical partner. We will focus on connecting small financial institutions to real-time payment networks to make cross-border remittances for the Singapore-to-Philippines corridor more efficient and comfortable.”
Mr. Deepan Dagur, Vice President and Head of Visa Direct, Asia Pacific at Visa, commented, "Remittance is an essential financial service to the migrant community in Singapore to enable workers to stay connected to their families back home. Visa’s partnership with ThitsaWorks and regional client financial organisations will enable us to provide a convenient and secure option for migrant workers to easily send money to the Philippines.”
Ms. Debbie Watkins, CEO and Co-founder of Lucy Holdings Pte. Ltd., added, "We are thrilled to collaborate with the industry-leading financial services for the Cross-Border Remittance Project. As the project steering committee, we will contribute to the project by incorporating user feedback into design discussions, and we are excited to witness the project’s impact."
Mr. John Januszczak, President and CEO of UBX shared, “This is the big step forward to enable fast, convenient, and ubiquitous cross-border remittances for the benefits of the Filipino migrant workers in Singapore. I am confident that this partnership will also accelerate financial inclusion in the Philippines by giving clients across all regions of the archipelago - regardless of how rural or remote - access to secure and connected payments through any financial service provider including rural banks, cooperatives and other community based financial institutions. We see this as making a material impact on the ability for all Filipinos to participate in the digital economy.”
For further information, please contact at media@thitsaworks.com.
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About ThitsaWorks:
ThitsaWorks is a FinTech that provides digital payment and data analytics solutions for financial institutions to transact, collect, manage and analyze data needed to run effective operations and manage risks. ThitsaWorks’s data-driven solutions help financial institutions grow and make better credit decisions, and improve financial inclusion by providing users with access to financial literacy, financial information and appropriate financial products. ThitsaWorks’ solutions include core banking software, microfinance data sharing platform, digital financial literacy platform, and interoperable payment switch platform.
For more information about ThitsaWorks, visit https://www.thitsaworks.com.
About the Mojaloop Foundation:
The Mojaloop Foundation’s mission is to increase financial inclusion by empowering organizations to create interoperable payment systems to enable digital financial services for all. Sponsor-level members include Coil, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, MAS, INFITX (previously ModusBox), Ripple, and The Rockefeller Foundation. To achieve its mission, Mojaloop Foundation operates as a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit organisation, maintaining its free, open-source software, Mojaloop, and community as public goods in the service of financial inclusion. Merchants, banks, providers, government offices, and other entities looking to build inclusive payments platforms can use Mojaloop – whole, adapted, or as a real-time payments reference model. For more information about the Mojaloop Foundation, visit https://mojaloop.io/.
About INFITX:
INFITX (Inclusive Financial Technology eXperts) delivers fast and low-cost deployments of effective Instant and Inclusive Payment Systems (IIPS) and real-time payment (RTP) solutions. We support Financial Services Providers (FSP) and FinTechs in participating in the Payment Schemes with easy onboarding and optimised participation - the keys to the Scheme providing successful interoperability. INFITX holds a leading role as one of the founding members of the open-source community that maintains Mojaloop - the first open-source platform for interoperability in a real-time payment network. As a participant in this community, we contribute to the core solution and development of adjacent capabilities. Through capacity building and technical assistance programmes, INFITX empowers government, industry, and commercial organisations to create schemes that realise IIPS/RTP hubs and support FSPs and FinTechs that participate in them. We have expertise in scheme creation, hub business operations, and technical operations for self-hosted or cloud-based solutions. We support hub operators with services and solutions that de-risk the journey of adopting OSS solutions, like Mojaloop, and ensure a dependable and supported service. And, following best practices, we provide support for FSPs and FinTechs, as 3rd Party Payment Initiators, to optimise their participation in instant payment systems.
Learn more: https://infitx.com
About LUCY:
Lucy is a digital neobank and integrated empowering community toolkit that helps entrepreneurial women become unstoppable by leveling the financial playing field. Lucy has been designed from the ground up to provide entrepreneurial women everywhere with the tools they need to take control of their financial future, realize their potential, grow and thrive. We equip them with the financial services, business-building tools, and belief in their capabilities and potential that they need to take control of their future and make a positive contribution to their growth and, through that, to the economy's growth as a whole. Our solution is entirely virtual and app-based and leverages cutting-edge technology to enable streamlined digital delivery, a customer-centric product portfolio, and a clean and intuitive user interface.
For more information about LUCY, visit: https://welucy.com/
About UBX:
Originally the financial technology venture studio and fund of UnionBank of the Philippines, UBX is now the Philippines' leading Open Finance platform. UBX is predicated on a future where financial services are invisible: seamlessly embedded into the experiences and activities that truly matter to businesses and people.
For more information about UBX, visit https://www.ubx.ph/