NewTech Friday: Tranglo – Transforming global payments

Jacky Lee is Tranglo Group’s CEO. He explained to Efma’s Boris Plantier how his company is simplifying cross-border payments so its users can focus on keeping their customers happy.


What led to the creation of Tranglo?

In 2008, mobile top-ups dominated the payments scene in Southeast Asia. Tranglo was founded because we saw the opportunity to provide a cross-border airtime credit transfer solution for businesses and users to tackle the inefficiencies of physically traveling across borders to share airtime credit. Airtime remained our chief business driver until 2014, when a shift in market demands caused us to reposition ourselves as a cross-border payment hub with a single mission in mind: to transform the global payment industry.

However, cross-border payment, whether in the form of money or airtime, was and still is a huge challenge for many businesses and their customers. Businesses need to navigate regulatory differences and language barriers, which eat into operational budgets. Complexities involved in routing and central intermediaries also mean global remittance costs remain high. There was also a lack of transparency regarding such transfers, resulting in a fragmented payment landscape.

Tranglo was created to address these cross-border challenges to make global payments easier and accessible to the masses.