Salarium taps cryptocurrency, blockchain to ease remittance costs in the Philippines
SALPay, the company’s payout platform, promises to become a cheaper and faster way of sending money to the world’s outsourcing capital.
Manila, Philippines — 6 November 2017
FinTech startup and Seedstars World winner Salarium has announced that it will adopt cryptocurrency and blockchain technology by the end of the year to help businesses and individuals get remittances into the Philippines. SALPay, the company’s payout system, will soon help its users cut down on bank and FOREX fees as well as on long processing times whenever they send money to the country.
Since 2014, Salarium’s cloud software has helped over 500 businesses manage their employees’ attendance, payroll, and pay disbursement. More than 10,000 employees across the archipelago are being paid through the platform. SALPay, on the other hand, enables employees to receive and manage their salary through a debit card paired with an electronic wallet. Its mobile app lets users apply for loans, pay bills, buy prepaid mobile phone credits, and transfer funds to major banks and pawnshops in the country.
SALPay is now being designed to serve as an alternative medium for business process outsourcing (BPO) companies, offshore employers, and overseas workers to send remittances to the Philippines.
Three Problems, One Disruptive Solution
To pay their employees in the country, BPO companies have to deal with hefty bank fees and poor foreign exchange rates. They lose almost 5% of the amount that they send. On top of the mounting costs, remittances face the danger of being delayed as they usually take three to five banking days to complete.
Similar burdens fall upon the shoulders of offshore employers who hire freelancers in the Philippines. The best freelancing platforms, i.e. those that protect both employers and freelancers with a time management tool and an escrow service, come at a high price. They take up to 10% of the payments the employer has to send, with an additional fee for currency conversion. On the other hand, freelancers usually have to wait up to seven days before receiving get their payment. Some platforms have harnessed the potential of cryptocurrency as a cheap mode of payment for freelancers, but only without the guarantee of protection for both parties.
Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), who make up nearly 10% of the country’s population, have been demanding a less expensive way of sending their remittances, which peaked at $28 billion in 2016. Most of them use money-transfer services that cost between 7 to 10% of the amount to be sent after FOREX conversion.
The problems described above reveal the need for a cheaper and faster way to send money to the Philippines — problems which, through cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, and a global network of exchanges, Salarium seeks to tackle head-on.
How SALPay’s Cryptocurrency System Works
With SALPay, BPOs and employers outside the Philippines can transfer funds to exchanges where their money will be converted into SALPay Tokens, Salarium’s cryptocurrency. The converted funds will be stored and managed on SALPay while the hours of work, attendance, and projects will be tracked using Salarium’s flagship software. Salarium will also be used to create smart contracts, which will guide the development and completion of freelance projects. After the outsourced employees and freelancers deliver the job that needs to be done, their employers’ SALPay Tokens will be converted into Philippine Peso and deposited into their SALPay e-wallets. The employees and freelancers can then withdraw their money from any of the 11,000 ATMs in the country that accepts their SALPay debit card.
This arrangement takes away a significant portion of the costs of remittances. It also allows for payments to be made in an instant. The inclusion of smart contracts as well as of Salarium’s time-and-attendance-tracking and payroll-processing features allow both employers and freelancers to work together worry-free.
The system’s benefits extend to OFWs, who can avoid conversion fees by buying SALPay Tokens at exchanges around the world and sending them, in Philippine Peso, straight to their families’ and relatives’ SALPay Wallets.
SALPay’s Initial Coin Offering (ICO) will be announced in November while SALPay Tokens will be made available via exchanges worldwide by early 2018. To learn more about Salarium, you can follow the company on Facebook and YouTube or visit Salarium . For more information about the ICO, email f.yusof@salarium.com or jhirsch@salarium.com. Join their Telegram at SALPay or Slack Public Channel here.
