Payoneer opens Philippine office

MANILA, Philippines – After seven years of serving Filipino entrepreneurs and freelancers in the country, online and cross-border payment solutions provider Payoneer Inc. has finally opened its Philippine office in Taguig City.

Patrick de Courcy, head of Asia-Pacific for Payoneer Inc., told reporters the company has decided to expand its footprint into the country to take advantage of its growing freelancing, outsourcing and e-commerce industry.

“In the Philippines, we see a huge potential in the freelance, business processing outsourcing (BPO), and small businesses to become global businesses, and we help them to get paid on a cost efficient, easy, simple manner,” De Courcy said on the sidelines of the company’s Manila office launching.

According to de Courcy, the Philippines is one of Payoneer’s fastest growing markets, with 230 percent growth in registration, and 307 percent growth in payment volume from 2010 to 2015. Payoneer services has been present in the Philippines since 2009.

Payoneer country manager Miguel Warren, for his part, said the Philippine office of Payoneer seeks to create a better relationship between the company and its local clients, enabling it to understand better and adapt to the needs of the market.

“We’re starting to build out our local team...We understand that in order to be able to grow the business, we are gonna need to become more local, to understand the costumers better,” Warren said.

Citing no figures, the company official said there is still a lot of potential for Payoneer to grow in the Philippines as the market of global e-commerce entrepreneurs and freelancers remains untapped.

“There’s a lot of opportunity to serve this underserved segment of cross-border entrepreneurs and freelancers and this is where our growth is gonna come from. Because not a lot of attention is paid to this segment, and if we can take care of them, serve them, I think we’re gonna be very good in terms of volume,” he said.

According to Warren, there is an estimated one to 1.5 million Filipino freelancers and online professionals in the Philippines, excluding e-commerce sellers and emerging “small medium enterprise” BPOs.

“(These SME BPOs) are based from home, or from alternative business officer, serving as virtual assistants, customer service representatives, providing service to businesses in the US, UK, Australia,” Warren said.

“These are BPOs but homegrown and SMEs. This is a segment, which for me, has a lot of opportunity and we can help them by making it easier for them to receive payment,” he added.