April 26, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] Payoneer, a New York-based payments processing company, officially launched a new South Korea office on April 10, targeting primarily small and mid-sized businesses selling their products globally via online marketplaces like Amazon and Alibaba.

“Launching Payoneer’s office in Korea shouldn’t come as a surprise. Korea is a fast-growing economy and the 7th biggest e-commerce market in the world,” said Payoneer’s General Manager for Direct Business Eyal Modovan during a press conference held in Seoul.

For this reason, Korea has been at the top of the priority list as Payoneer has begun setting up a presence in Asia, including Japan, China and the Philippines, according to Patrick de Courcy, head of Asia-Pacific at Payoneer.

Founded in 2005, Payoneer is a firm that facilitates cross-border transactions between an online marketplace and individual sellers. It processes customer payments made on e-commerce sites like Amazon, Lazada and Shoppe, then passes on the payments to sellers.

Payoneer’s clients also include freelancers active on other online marketplaces such as lodging rental platform AirBnb and stock photography marketplace Getty Images.

How does Payoneer work? For instance, for a Korean business selling a product on Amazon US, Payoneer would generated a virtual US account for that seller through which he or she can receive customer payments. Later the funds would be transferred to the seller’s local bank account via Payoneer.

The payments processing firm claims that by using its platform — which collects a service fee of 1.2 percent or lower — clients can avoid the various transactions fees generated as the money passes through various entities.

Payoneer also promises to complete the payment retrieval process down to 2 days, compared to around a week if traditional payment processing channels were used, the company said.

Looking ahead, Payoneer hopes to capitalize on the growing number of cross-border payments being facilitated around the world. According to shipping company DHL, cross-border B2B payments volume is expected to exceed US$51 trillion by 2020 and US$85 trillion by 2025, with most of the growth coming from emerging markets.

Payoneer Korea’s office is based at a WeWork office in Gangnam, and will be led by Lee Woo-yong, Payoneer’s Country Manager for Korea.

By Sohn Ji-young/The Korea Herald (jys@heraldcorp.com)