7-Eleven Singapore will collect cash payments for transactions initiated via home-grown financial-services company Pay2Home’s digital platform.
Pay2Home is one of the growing group of fintech companies creating services for consumers who are unbanked, including hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who send funds back to their families in their home countries.
Under the Pay2Home and 7-Eleven Singapore partnership, those without a bank account or debit card may now initiate a remittance transaction using the Pay2Home mobile app and pay instantly with a generated QR-code bill using cash at any 7-Eleven store. The funds are available for immediate delivery overseas.
Pay2Home co-founder David Hulme says migrant workers in Singapore continue to transact primarily in cash.
“Many are still paid in cash; they buy in cash, and their home countries are cash economies,” he says. “If you’re catering to a market that prefers cash and is more comfortable with cash, then as a FinTech company, our responsibility is to make sure that our digital services meet their needs. It’s about financial inclusion at their pace, not ours.”
Steven Lye, MD of 7-Eleven Singapore, says partnering with Pay2Home is an example of the convenience-store chain’s efforts to differentiate itself and provide relevant services to the community at large.
“With 400 7-Eleven stores Island-wide as additional payment touchpoints, Pay2Home’s underbanked customers can conveniently pay for their remittance transactions without having to queue at a conventional remittance counter.”
Founded in 2001, Pay2Home was the first remittance company to receive regulatory approval to operate online and the first to pioneer purpose-built multilingual self-service Money Transfer Machines. It is the only full omnichannel remittance operator in the country.