Fintech Startup Jipay Receives Early Stage Funding from East Ventures

Fintech startup for domestic workers (PRT) Jipay announced the acquisition of initial funding of $1.3 million or around 19 billion Rupiah.

The round was led by East Ventures, with participation from SHL Capital and several angel investors, including Manila Angel Network and Shivaas Gulati (co-founder of Remitly). This fresh fund will be used for team expansion and product development.

Jipay develops prepaid cards and applications for families to manage expenses through their domestic workers. Domestic workers can use the connected Mastercard for shopping and employers can top up accounts via the same app.

By simplifying this process, Jipay wants to save employers time while eliminating the additional burden of domestic workers to always carry and ask for cash.

Eliminating Domestic Workers’ Financial Management Frictions

This solution was first developed by Dayana Yermolayeva, a citizen of Ukraine, after graduating from a campus in Hong Kong in 2020. In her home country, there is almost no concept of domestic workers which is in stark contrast to Asia.

Unfortunately, the structure of the domestic worker industry here is irregular, despite their important role in society and the labor industry. In Hong Kong, domestic workers, especially foreign workers, do not have access to banks, much less to basic financial services, such as remittances, savings and insurance.

Meanwhile, families who employ foreign domestic workers have difficulty with financial arrangements because salary payments often have to be made in cash.

Managing daily expenses using cash, paper receipts and notebooks is a tedious and tedious way of manual bookkeeping.

“The problem is not just inconvenience due to this messy way of managing household expenses. The real problem is the lack of trust between families and their domestic workers,” Yermolayeva said in an official statement, Thursday (31/3).

From the root of the problem, Jipay was born with the spirit of building trust by embracing employers, domestic workers, and children on one platform.

Jipay application helps two groups of users. First, employers can use the app and a connected Mastercard to track household expenses.

They can add funds, view transactions, and be informed about weekly spending trends. Thus, employers no longer need to go to an ATM to withdraw cash and read receipts from their household members again.

Second, domestic workers can use the Jipay Mastercard prepaid card to shop for household needs. This card can be used in offline stores, online, as well as public transportation services.

For traditional markets that do not accept cards, domestic workers can use the PayNow feature directly from the Jipay app. They can see balances and time transactions, so they can be more effective in using household budgets.

“Foreign domestic workers who use Jipay admit that Jipay has helped them to relieve the stress and discomfort of managing the cash provided by the employer. They don’t have to ask for cash, keep receipts, or carry loose change anymore. With this, domestic workers and employers can build better trust.”

Jipay Business Plan

Currently, Jipay claims to have attracted more than 1,000 domestic workers in Singapore to use its application. As for the nominal spending through cards (card spending) reaching $1 million, the transaction volume has continued to crawl to more than 10 times in the last six months.

This achievement is claimed to make Jipay a game-changer in bringing household chores into the cashless economy.

“Jipay users from the employer’s side also help in educating domestic workers about the benefits of Jipay for their personal finances, and this is very important especially during the orientation and early adoption period.”

The company will develop other innovations, such as launching personal finance products for domestic workers; Domestic workers will be able to receive salary payments to their Jipay personal accounts to be sent to their families via Jipay Remit.

They also use Jipay Save to set aside money for big expenses, such as buying property or university fees for their children.