By Kang Jae-eun
SEOUL, Dec. 7 (Yonhap) — When Kim Hyung-woo, the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of fintech startup Travel Wallet, worked in the foreign exchange (FX) trading sector some 10 years ago, he grew deeply frustrated by the then archaic ways in which South Korea’s FX market operated.
“People were sending faxes to each other. I would be watching screens running on DOS, or disk-based operating systems, and had to calculate the (currency) prices on paper,” the 40-year-old CEO recalled in an interview with Yonhap News Agency held Wednesday in Seoul.
“The foreign currency trading systems were stuck in a place some 30 years ago despite the significant developments in computing, data processing and programming,” he said.
Motivated by such experiences, the former FX trader founded Travel Wallet in 2017 with the ambition to simplify and lower the cost of exchanging and paying foreign currencies.
Travel Wallet founder and CEO Kim Hyung-woo is seen at the startup’s office in southern Seoul, in this undated file photo provided by the company. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
Kim had initially sought partnerships with existing financial institutions, visiting dozens of banks and credit card companies. Many had shown interest in his business proposal but eventually turned it down.
According to Kim, many declined his offer, citing challenges in committing to such a significant change in their IT systems without clear assurances of success.
Coincidentally, during that time, the U.S. payment giant, Visa Inc., had been approaching local credit card companies with a similar business idea.
Their paths eventually crossed, leading Visa to designate Travel Wallet as the first Korean partner in the company’s “Fintech Fast Track Program,” an initiative aimed at helping fintech companies launch new payment systems utilizing Visa’s network.
In 2020, the startup became the first company in Asia to obtain a principal license from Visa. A year later, it launched the Travel Pay service, where users can exchange, make payments and manage transfers of foreign currencies without fees.
The company now supports 46 currencies, with cumulative transactions reaching 7 trillion won (US$4.8 billion) as of October. It has raised a total of 72 billion won so far, including Series C funding of 19.6 billion won finalized in 2023.
Travel Wallet expects to generate 80 to 90 billion won in sales this year, aiming for profitability without specifying an operating profit target.
Services provided by fintech startup Travel Wallet are shown in this undated promotional image provided by the company. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
Now the fintech startup is preparing to scale up overseas, with the app’s Japan release scheduled for this month, followed by its release in the United States slated for early next year.
“Our next destination is likely to be Europe and then to Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada,” Kim said.
Apart from its global business, Travel Wallet is strategically expanding its businesses-to-business (B2B) operations too, leveraging its strengths as a payment company operating entirely on a cloud-based system.
Its B2B operations focus on designing and consulting companies on creating a cloud-based system for foreign currency exchanges and payments.
“Financial companies had since been very reluctant to change into a cloud-native environment. But that perception is changing because of artificial intelligence (AI), as the cloud is a pretext for using AI,” Kim said, adding that the company is set to announce a partnership with a major financial company next year.
Kim Hyung-woo, the founder and CEO of South Korean fintech startup Travel Wallet, poses for a photo at the company’s office in southern Seoul on Dec. 3, 2025. (Yonhap)
Travel Wallet is also preparing for the future of payment and has been working to develop infrastructure necessary to process stablecoin transactions, such as anti-money laundering and refund systems.
It plans to provide such infrastructure to other companies but has yet to decide on a specific timeline for the venture, largely due to ongoing delays in the regulatory framework of virtual assets.
“I think these debates on what to allow and what not to allow are meaningless. You have to throw (the new technology) out there to find out its benefits and side effects,” Kim said.
When asked about a potential initial public offering (IPO), Kim said the company could go public sometime in 2027, though such plans are always “changeable.”
“Our long-term goal is to launch the Travel Wallet app everywhere, across the globe, connect all those wallets, and ultimately build the most ideal cross-border payment and money transfer ecosystem.”
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