Korean fintech company WebCash to target Southeast Asian market

WebCash Chairman Seok Chang-gyu pose for a photo during the interview with the Maeil Business Newspaper at the company’s head office in Seoul on May 8. [Photo by Han Joo-hyung]

WebCash Corp., a leading business-to-business (B2B) fintech solutions provider in South Korea, plans to expand its reach into global markets, including Southeast Asia.

The plan was unveiled by WebCash Chairman Seok Chang-gyu in his latest interview with the Maeil Business Newspaper. He said the company will aim to increase its overseas sales to 100 billion won ($74.8 million) and global partners to 200 over the next three years. To this end, WebCash will invest 10 billion won in promoting overseas operations for two years.

“We were able to make solid growth because we cared about what customers want and delivered what they want,” said Seok.

The training program for promising engineers that WebCash offered in Cambodia as part of its social contributions has now become the most popular training course in the country, according to Seok. Webcash Cambodia, the company’s local subsidiary, has a workforce of around 130 skilled software engineers.

Seok said the top 3 percent of Cambodian engineers from the training course created the artificial intelligence-powered bookkeeping software program WABOOKS. “We launched the platform in Vietnam earlier this year and Cambodia last year,” Seok said. “We have seen 30 to 40 Vietnamese enterprises use the service.”

Webcash aims to promote its five key products, such as WABOOKS, to solidify its leading position in Southeast Asia’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) sector.

To target advanced markets, WebCash will focus on Flow, its all-in-one platform designed for collective projects. “We will aim to ensure that up to 50 countries worldwide use MorningMate, an overseas version of Flow,” said Seok.

WebCash started its history as a startup founded in 1999 by Seok, who had professional experience in the banking information technology sector. It has grown to be a leading player in the B2B fintech market with financial innovations, such as virtual accounts and corporate management services. The company posted a record 20 billion won in operating profit last year on the back of strong sales in its SaaS business.

The B2B services developed by Seok have proved successful as they have been widely used by Korean companies. Approximately 8,000 Korean private firms and institutions have used WebCash’s corporate management solutions. In particular, its flagship banking-imbedded bookkeeping product, AI Kyungrinara, has become one of the major SaaS platforms used by 60,000 small to mid-sized companies in South Korea.