Filipino-owned financial technology firm BayaniPay has launched a global real estate payment service that lets overseas Filipinos conveniently manage their hard-earned local investments.

At a press briefing on Wednesday, BayaniPay CEO Winston Damarillo said the new solution also bridges the gap in cross-border payments for the P1-trillion local real estate industry.

US-to-Phl corridor

“We want to be the corridor from the United States to the Philippines. We see a huge potential in this highly untapped market marked by several barriers for overseas Filipinos,” Damarillo told reporters.

“Our partnerships with key industry leaders enable Filipino immigrants to conveniently pay their property investments in the Philippines at zero transaction fees and with competitive exchange rates,” he said.

Powered by the Sy-led BDO Unibank, BayaniPay’s new Bills Pay services have zero transaction fees and competitive exchange rates.

The service offers customers the benefits of monthly auto debit and paying using an eligible funding source so they no longer have to open a separate bank account in the Philippines.

Bills Pay real estate category

BayaniPay also partnered with SM Development Corp. and Ortigas Land Corp., to pioneer the real estate category of Bills Pay so they can start collecting, automating, and reconciling payments with ease through a custom dashboard.

Data from the state-run Philippine Statistics Authority showed that the country’s real estate market saw a boom in activity in the last couple of years, establishing its value of P1 trillion as of 2019.

Meanwhile, the World Bank reported that overseas Filipinos are allocating as much as 60 percent of their remittances to property investments in the country.

Last year, BayaniPay raised $4.5 million in seed funding from East West Bank, Wavemaker Partners, and Talino Venture Labs to support its goal of delivering pioneering cross-border banking services to Asian American immigrants. It targets to increase its current 10,000 user base to 100,000 in the next two years.