Our License, Our Story

GOW — Origin in Remittance
$617 Billion.
That’s the figure GOW CEO Tim Ying looked at when establishing ETranss in 2015. “One day in Central Hong Kong, I saw overseas workers form Southeast Asian countries queuing for hours on a Sunday. They were all lining up to send money to their friends and loved ones overseas. They’re working tirelessly all week, Monday to Saturday, but on their day off they’re trudging down to their remittance vendors to take care of their families. To me, this wasn’t right,” he exclaimed.
Tim, formerly the head of global corporate digital marketing at HSBC and advisor to financial institutions globally, is all too aware of the shortcomings of the global financial system. “There’s a gap,” he said, when talking about financial inclusion in traditional banks. “Digital assets have the potential to address to many of the ills of the global financial system, which is why we use it as a means of arbitrage between regular remittance providers and GOW Exchange.
$617 Billion is the figure of remittances sent overseas every year. Of this $617 billion, $30 billion is charged in fees and additional levies. When sending money overseas, there are multiple steps, and at each one of those steps, the remitter incurs additional charges. “These are the most vulnerable people in society; why should they have to lose a vast proportion of their earnings to financial service providers,” added Sam.
It was from this idea that GOW Exchange was born.

The Philippines
Originally being based out of Hong Kong, ETranss, a GOW wholly-owned subsidiary, moved its headquarters to Manila, in the Philippines.
To Tim and Sam, who are Canadian, the Philippines seemed like the most logical destination to begin their journey of making overseas money transfers easier, cheaper, and faster than before. Technology exists as a means of transcending national boundaries and bringing people together. This premise, unfortunately, did not apply to remittance, where it was largely archaic, inefficient, time-consuming, and cripplingly expensive.
10% of the Philippines’ GDP comes from overseas remittances from Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) predominantly scattered throughout the US, the Middle East, and other Southeast Asian countries. $30 billion is sent to the Philippines from OFWs every year, with 7% of that being lost on banking charges.
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Philippines Central Bank, at that time headed by the late Nestor Espenilla, made forward strides towards financial inclusivity and digitalization. Workers and their families were losing too much. In addition to this, Two-thirds of the population does not have bank accounts, while two-thirds of the population has access to a smartphone.
Even though the Philippines has grown exponentially in recent years, with its economy growing 5.5% in Q2 2019 alone, it is still a fragmented country. It consists of 7,641 islands, multiple ethnic groups, and political divides. Developments between islands is uneven, meaning that it is very difficult to form a unified developmental approach. Banks have not yet penetrated a large amount of the islands, meaning that a large swathe of the population does not have access to basic financial services. Others rely on rural banks, which still take records on paper. This, nevertheless, was beyond most people.
There was a gap that the BSP noticed, and with the advent of blockchain technology, there was a way of fixing this longstanding financial imbalance.
The BSP Licensing Approach
In 2018, the BSP awarded 7 different financial companies with Virtual Currency Exchange licenses, becoming one of the first countries in the world to do so. Each company had a different mandate within the licensing system, providing a series of overlapping and mutually-beneficial services to boost development within the Philippines and help advance the digital economy.
With its Class-A remittance license, E-Wallet, and Virtually Currency Exchange licenses in place, Tim and Sam felt the time was right to launch their pet project, GOW — Global Overseas Worker.
This mission wasn’t just limited to the Philippines, but workers globally who look for better solutions when sending money overseas. With strict Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know-Your-Customer (KYC) standards in place, existing within a strict regulatory framework, they felt the time was right to offer solutions that would serve people globally.
The Philippines Edge
There was a catch, however.
Not everyone in the Philippines could register an account on the GOW Exchange that had been built. To get an account, you need to have a bank account to pour money into.
“One of the main problems with different exchanges is that, though they might have licenses, they don’t have preexisting banking relationships, and therefore cannot solve the last-mile problem, of clearing and settling digital asset transactions in fiat currency.”
The roots of GOW come from traditional banking, with a holistic understanding of how finance works.
Got a bank account? You can receive money directly into your bank account.
Don’t have a bank account, but you have a smartphone? Great, receive money in your smartphone!
Don’t have a bank account or a smartphone? Not a problem! Receive money via our GOW debit cards.
“It’s all about offering a service that everyone in society can benefit from, we want to make the financial system inclusive, nobody should be left behind,” said Sam.
What about the Digital Assets?
One of the things the license enables GOW to do is settle crypto-to-fiat transactions in the G10 currencies. Digital Assets are a way of eliminating the red-tape and bureaucracy within the global financial system and offer a way of slashing costs that should never have been so high in the first place, by removing different steps in the remittance process.
With its License to List, what GOW aims to do is list projects that have the benefit to serve society as a whole alongside cutting-edge projects that have interesting IP that can help become trailblazers in their industries.
The Philippines government also hopes to become a digital assets Mecca in Southeast Asia, with its pivot towards luring international businesses to its shores. The logic is, to have inward remittance, you also need to have outward remittance, which is what makes the Philippines such an attractive destination for international businesses looking for a hub to enter into the Asian market. What these businesses currently lack is a set of payment rails to be able to clear and settle transactions in a way that is legal, compliant, and efficient.
“We aim to become the first company to really show what being licensed can do,” says Tim.
Can you afford to miss out on the chance of being an early adopter?
