MoolahGo has been recognized by APAC CIOOutlook Magazine as the recipient of “Top Enterprise Startups,” based on our proprietary methodology, reflecting its position in the industry. This profile has been developed by the APAC CIOOutlook research and editorial team based on insights from an interview with John Hakim.

MoolahGo
Marketplace for Currency Exchange and Money Transfer

John Hakim, Founder and CEO

Individuals who frequently travel for business purposes, recreational activities, and family outings are often left with the unspent foreign currency, which they struggle to return due to high exchange rates. But what if they could sell the unspent money online without having to spend hours at the brick-and-mortar exchange bureaus? Singapore-based MoolahGo’s e-Marketplace transactions engine makes such possibilities a reality. The company’s platform even allows users to earn reward points along with better exchange rates. These benefits proved significant to an SME that purchases supplies from various Southeast Asian countries using telegraphic transfers (TT) via the banks. The SME associates with MoolahGo to employ its e-Marketplace platform to carry out their transactions efficiently. The transactions could cost the SME up to 10 percent of the amount being transacted and also require filling up the forms at the bank manually when the firm was not using the platform. On the other hand, today, the SME has a highly competitive exchange rate, fast service, and saves significantly on costs.

MoolahGo is a Fintech startup that caters to many such needs of businesses and individuals. “Our corporate offering is not a cookie-cutter solution but was adopted specifically for that SME client’s business. This is where our founders’ past consulting experience proved to be beneficial in providing advice to clients and creating customized APIs to connect our systems,” mentions John Hakim, the founder and CEO of MoolahGo.

Provider of a peer-to-peer e-Marketplace transactions platform, MoolahGo was founded in 2017 with the vision to deliver transactional services such as currency exchange and money transfer at a faster rate. High costs, unattractive pricing, and unsafe transaction practices are some of the typical challenges that consumers come across during currency exchanges and money transfers. Addressing these loopholes, MoolahGo offers online currency exchange and money transfer solution using its core e-Marketplace transactions engine.

MoolahGo’s transactional services are accessible for a broad range of customers including users who do not possess bank accounts

MoolahGo’s solution allows online booking of currencies and payments to avoid potential fraud or manual mishandling of cash along with monitoring the transactions in real time. The high-priced exchange rates charged by the bureaus especially on currencies traded rarely are another problem. MoolahGo has not only transformed the existing conventional money changing industry while addressing these problems but has also improved the overall image, efficiency, safety, and security of this industry.

For money transfer transactions, the company provides a same-day payout for the common remittance destinations. The company charges a low service fee for all currencies and amounts that are exchanged or transacted using its e-Marketplace platform. It allows the users to leverage a set of ‘trading-like’ features comprising foreign exchange transactions based on market rate, floating rate, or fixed rate. MoolahGo’s transactional services are accessible by a large customer base including users who do not possess bank accounts. The company caters to such clients’ needs by accepting cash payments while deploying policies or processes to manage the risks associated with cash payments. The MoolahGo platform is licensed and regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), and also complies with the strict anti-money laundering and countering terrorism financing regulations mandated by the city-state central bank/regulator.

Even though MoolahGo is new to the market, it has already processed transactions worth more than a million Singapore dollars and signed up hundreds of users. “We have several projects in the pipeline that will keep us busy for the next 12-24 months. Multi-currency e-Wallet, regional expansions, and additional financial product developments are some of the key initiatives planned for the future,” reveals Hakim.

MoolahGo News

Pay to Indonesia With Just a Mobile Number

Moolahgo is the First eWallet App in Singapore to offer fuss-free, instant payments from Singapore to 5 major eWallets in Indonesia.

SINGAPORE - Moolahgo, a leading Fintech headquartered in Singapore, has just announced the launch of its hassle-free, real-time payment service from Singapore to Indonesia eWallets. Available on its eWallet app under the aptly named feature “Pay Now to Indonesia”, it believes that it is likely the first fintech in Singapore to provide such a payment service by allowing its users to simply select a mobile number stored in the phone contacts list, making the cross-border payment now as easy as a local payment service such as Singapore’s PayNow fast payment system.

The service currently covers 5 major eWallet operators in Indonesia, namely OVO, Dana, GoPay, LinkAja! and ShopeePay, with a combined total of more than 300 million users.

This new service is a proven success story by commercial partners in achieving connectivity of fast payment systems. Such initiatives are in line with central banks’ efforts to link up national payment systems such as the MAS’ initiatives that have linked Singapore’s PayNow to Thailand’s PromptPay and to India’s UPI and Malaysia’s DuitNow in 2022.

Real-time cross-border payment is no simple construct. The complexity of integrating varied technology platforms and managing volatility of foreign exchanges were challenges that needed resolute to reduce remittance transactions from days to mere seconds. The Moolahgo team invested months of development to harmonize the technology stacks between the company and its Indonesian partners.

Banking services are still relatively inaccessible but mobile networks have improved in many rural parts of Indonesia. As such, many have turned to non-traditional payment methods like eWallets, driving the increasingly high adoption of digital financial services.

Now with Moolahgo’s new Pay Now to Indonesia service, Indonesians living and working in Singapore no longer need to rely on traditional costly and slow bank to bank transfers to send money home and can also avoid the unsafe practices of cash pick-ups.

“Most Indonesian foreign workers in Singapore are sole breadwinners of their families back home. When they send money home, it is usually a significant amount and they may feel anxiety during this ‘waiting time’ that money is late or lost. With real-time low-cost transfers, they can have a peace of mind that their hard-earned money reaches their loved ones immediately,” commented Ms. Stephanie Lu, Head of Marketing at Moolahgo.

Moolahgo’s Pay Now to Indonesia service costs much lesser compared to traditional remittances and bank transfers. As at the time of this writing, Moolahgo charges only S$0.50 per transaction and as part of the launch, it is waiving off all fees until further notice. In addition, users get to enjoy the same competitive rates that moolahgo App offers for its remittance service. This service is now available in both the latest Android and iOS version of the Moolahgo eWallet app.

As part of its Payment-as-a-Service offering, Moolahgo has also made this technology available on its API integration suite for its business clients and other payment service providers to leverage upon.