00:00Thank you for joining us. Now we will go to the CreateUp segment and we will have Rosalind Xu.
00:07Thank you for discussing the interesting topic from CreateUp this time, which is the Paywatch expansion.
00:12Since the funding has been connected through LINE ZOOM with Alex Kim, President and Co-Founder of Paywatch.
00:19So, hello Alex, thank you very much for joining us in CreateUp with IDX Channel.
00:25Hi, thank you very much. Thank you very much for having me.
00:28First of all, we would like to say congratulations on the new funding that had been closed by the end of June, if I'm not mistaken.
00:35So, what's the story behind this funding and objectively what are the reasons for Venter Capital or Consortium to invest their money in Paywatch?
00:46Thank you very much. So, the idea is that in total we raised around 490 billion rupiah, 30 million USD.
00:5614 million USD of it was raised as operational capital in equity.
01:06The rest of the 16 million, around 250 billion rupiah or so, was actually raised as credit facilities, which will be funding and powering our product, which is called Earned Wage Access.
01:25So, Alex, after gaining this quite big amount of funding, how do you view the large amount of funding, which is 491 billion rupiah consisting of a series of equity investment worth more than 229 billion rupiah and credit facilities from global banks?
01:50Yes, that's right. So, just to take a step back, our product, the company itself, Paywatch, is the leading Earned Wage Access service in Southeast Asia.
02:04We pride ourselves in being a financial management tool. Essentially, we work with large companies to allow their employees to instantly access a portion of their earned salary in real time.
02:19So, this is a debt-free solution that helps employees receive their salary more frequently.
02:25Essentially, out of the 490 billion, around 260 billion, 60% was in credit facilities, which was led by Citi.
02:35Citi is one of our main regional partners for powering this product.
02:43We are working with their social finance team, and they are funding Paywatch in order to provide this service to companies so that employees have access to Earned Wage Access at the lowest fees.
02:58In terms of the rest of the money, in terms of 260 billion or so, in terms of equity funding that we received from the venture capital, which includes Third Prime, as well as Vanderbilt University's endowment funds and University of Illinois endowment fund and the like, they are funding us to fund our operations and growth.
03:19Paywatch is based out of Malaysia, is headquartered out of Malaysia, but we have a significant presence in Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as other markets.
03:31There is a huge amount of trust that had been given by venture capital or the consortium to your company to Paywatch.
03:39It is reflected by the huge number of the funding that had been funded by them, 491 billion rupiah.
03:49So, how do you see that amount of trust that had been given by the stakeholders to your company?
03:57Yes, absolutely.
03:58I mean, thank you for that.
03:59You know, I mean, we're extremely honored to have this funding from our esteemed venture capital and endowment fund investors.
04:08Just to take an aside, we are the first Earned Wage Access that's been funded by the university endowments of Vanderbilt University and University of Illinois Foundation.
04:20They have done this precisely because of our impact-oriented approach.
04:26Our mission has always been to provide fair financial access to all.
04:32We believe financial stability is a fundamental right, and they were quite aligned in supporting our vision for this product.
04:42And secondly, Earned Wage Access or on-demand pay, it was first started in the U.S., and now it is a mainstream employee benefit solution.
04:55And so they believe that this is a trend also that's coming out to Asia, and that is also our experience as well, particularly in Southeast Asia.
05:04And following that sort of trajectory that the U.S. had is something that they believe in us as well.
05:12And we have the mandate to make this a mainstream employee benefit solution out in Southeast Asia as well.
05:21Sure, interesting.
05:22Interesting, Alex. And we would like to explore more on how actually this Earned Wage Access can benefit the companies as well as the employees.
05:32But we will continue that after this short break.
05:38Sure, Alex. Hold on.
05:39Great.
05:41Welcome back to the Idex Channel. You are with us again in the CreateUp segment, together with Alex Kim.
05:48So, Alex, basically, PayWatch is a startup company that provides early pay access for employees.
05:55So, what was the main idea of making this a startup, and how actually the companies can benefit by collaborating with this Earned Pay Access facility?
06:07Okay, thank you very much. So, great question, Rosalyn.
06:12So, PayWatch is essentially a financial wellness solution.
06:16We provide a solution, our product solution is called Earned Wage Access, or also known as On Demand Pay.
06:24So, we are a B2B platform.
06:26So, we partner and work with companies and enterprises specifically to allow their employees to instantly access a portion of their earned salary in real time.
06:36So, this is a debt-free solution, okay?
06:38So, what we are doing is we integrate with the companies, we track how much work the employees have actually completed,
06:46and then for a part that we allow employees to, in real time, access a part of their accumulated salaries through our system.
06:56So, we're essentially helping employees receive their salaries more frequently and on demand.
07:02So, as I mentioned briefly previously, I mean, we believe that the financial stability is a fundamental right.
07:10This is not a loan, this is not a salary advance, this is money that employees have already worked for and already belongs to them,
07:18but has not been paid out by the end employer yet.
07:22So, we're helping to actually make this happen in a real time basis.
07:26And lastly, I mean, you know, we are ESG oriented.
07:31We want to provide this service at the lowest nominal fee.
07:35And per transaction, per withdrawal, the only fee that we charge is a 7,500 rupiah withdrawal fee.
07:44That is that we give the choice actually to the companies to pay on behalf of the employees,
07:49or the companies may elect to have the employees pay for that 7,500 rupiah fee.
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