Hanpass moves beyond remittances into cards, loans and telecoms in a bid to become a 'foreigner financial platform'

[Financial News] Hanpass is accelerating its shift into a 'foreigner financial platform' by expanding into cards, loans and telecom services.
According to Hanpass on the 27th, the company's recent daily overseas remittance volume reached about 32,000 transactions, with transaction value exceeding 30 billion won. Its average daily volume also came to around 20,000 transactions, keeping it among the leaders in the remittance market.
The sharp rise in remittance volume recently is also the result of Hanpass's strategic pricing policy. Rather than maximizing profit per transfer, the company focused on attracting customers and expanding market share through competitive exchange rates and fees. In the short term, per-transaction profitability in remittances declined, but the base of customers acquired through remittances who repeatedly use wallets, cards and payments has expanded further.
In fact, the combined number of wallet top-ups and card payment transactions on the Hanpass platform has surpassed 100,000 per day. As foreign customers brought in through remittances increasingly use wallets, cards and payments, the share of non-remittance businesses in total revenue is also growing.
Hanpass's business model shift is rooted in the structural decline in profitability in the overseas remittance market. As competition among providers has driven down fees and exchange-rate margins, and free remittance services have become common in the domestic financial market, the company concluded that it would be difficult to sustain high profitability through remittances alone. It also expects that as foreign customers gain better access to information, it will become harder to charge separate fees for domestic remittance services that are offered free to Korean users.
For that reason, Hanpass has spent years investing in services that customers can use repeatedly, such as wallets, cards and payments. The company also believes that, given the nature of platform businesses, which require the accumulation of customer data, usage data and partnerships with financial institutions, latecomers will find it difficult to catch up quickly.
Shin Ji-Hyun, CBO at Hanpass, said, "In the past, if we had focused on the overseas remittance business and maximized short-term profits, annual operating profit could have reached several tens of billions of won. But Hanpass chose to improve its fundamentals and transform its business structure, taking future growth potential into account rather than staying with short-term profits compared with competitors."
Hanpass plans to speed up its platform expansion in the second half of this year by launching loan comparison and telecom services. In particular, it sees the foreigner credit loan market as a new growth engine.
Commercial banks and savings banks have recently been expanding credit loan products for foreigners, but financial institutions lack distribution channels to secure foreign customers. Foreigners, meanwhile, also struggle to compare suitable products at a glance.
Hanpass plans to connect financial institutions with foreign customers by leveraging the customer base it has built through remittances and card payments. If commercial banks and savings banks that offer foreigner loan products join the platform, customers will be able to compare products from multiple financial institutions in one place. Ultimately, the company aims to establish itself as a distribution platform for foreign financial products by creating a usage pattern in which people think, 'For foreigner credit loans, compare them on Hanpass.'
Telecom services follow the same logic. Hanpass plans to build a structure in which foreigners arriving in Korea can sequentially use the services they need on its platform, from mobile phone activation to payments, cards, remittances and loans.
Shin, the CBO, said, "The basis of competition in the overseas remittance market is shifting from fees and exchange rates to customers and platforms," adding, "We will expand our business structure into a platform that connects the full financial lives of foreign customers."
[email protected] Choi Doo-sun Reporter