Wise 正擴大其在菲律賓的布局，目標是在把握強勁匯款服務需求的同時，降低菲律賓消費者跨境轉帳的成本。

菲律賓長期位居全球最大的匯款接收國之一，資金流入仰賴數以百萬計的海外菲律賓勞工，以及越來越多向海外客戶賺取收入的自由工作者與數位經濟參與者。

Wise Philippines（Wise Pilipinas, Inc.）Country Manager Areson I. Cuevas 週四在媒體簡報會上說明了公司未來幾年的發展方向。

「Personally, what I would like to have in the next three years is for more Filipinos to be familiar with the power of the Wise account — that they don't need to receive in their other accounts, that they can receive it straight to their Wise account in the currency that they want,」Cuevas 先生表示。

根據內部數據，他指出，菲律賓的個人與企業在 2024 年因外匯加價合計損失估計達 P50 billion。儘管金額龐大，但只有 21% 的菲律賓人知道匯款會被收取隱藏加價。

「It's really more of the awareness that we have struggled with,」Cuevas 先生說，並補充估計損失在各市場之間「more or less uniform」。

「The average cost to move money across borders is 3% to 5%. So, that is how we computed the losses. In Wise, it's 0.5%. That's potential money that can be plowed back into the economy if people just knew about it,」他解釋說。

「So, the market is very big. And of course, the goal of Wise is to be able to ensure that the transparency ethics markup is being shared with our customers so that it's actually a $35-billion market in terms of remittances.」

為了縮小認知落差，Wise Philippines 正與監管機構、產業參與者及終端用戶合作，向公眾宣導匯款成本。

「That has been the biggest challenge, and we are having these talks with the regulators, with more industry participants, with actual freelancers, to make sure that the message comes across… They have to make sure that they know what they are paying for, and that so that they can compare among different providers,」Cuevas 先生說。

他補充說，這也反映出越來越多菲律賓人需要更順暢地進行國際資金移動。

「Normally, what I would do is I would wait for my family member to just come back to the Philippines, and I would pay because there’s no easy way to move money. So, we’re able to solve that by having this multi-currency account that can really span across different countries.」

公司推動成長的措施之一，是將 Philippine Identification System（PhilSys）ID 整合進使用者註冊流程；其中 40%–50% 的菲律賓用戶已透過此方式完成註冊。

「We are seeing that more and more customers are becoming familiar with PhilSys ID. What they do is they print their ID on bond paper or even their QR, and that is acceptable to us,」Cuevas 先生說。

Wise Philippines 也正與 Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas（BSP）討論調整轉帳費用，這是回應監管機構最新規定後的行動；該規定要求金融機構（FI）為個人對個人轉帳設定公平且符合市場機制的費用。

「If you’re looking at circular, it actually does not require FIs to put their fees to zero. It allows FIs to have their fees at cost, [which is] whatever cost they need to recover to be able to move that money. So, what we are ensuring to our customers is whatever fee you see on the app is the actual cost of moving those funds domestically and whatever margin you see.」

公司也在考慮新增銀行與非銀行合作夥伴，例如電子錢包，以進一步降低平台內的費用。

「In the Philippines, we still don’t have any non-financial institutions, but globally we have the likes of travel companies and stockbrokers,」Cuevas 先生說。「We want to bring costs down as low as possible. We are slowly doing that by having more direct connections globally.」

另一方面，他表示，由於披索近期走弱，菲律賓人持有外幣的情況有所增加。

「We see that more and more Filipinos are putting more money in their Wise account because they see that, unfortunately, the peso has been depreciating. We see that more and more Filipinos keep in foreign currency, and they convert to peso when they actually need it, not when they receive it. You convert when you see that the rate is favorable, and when you have actual need of the Philippine peso.」— A.M.C. Sy