A New Payments Service Aims to Get Slice of P1 Trillion Real Estate Market
.JPG)
Global payments solution platform BayaniPay Inc. has announced a partnership with BDO Unibank Inc., SM Development Corp., and Ortigas Land Corp., on Bills Pay, a new real estate payments service of its cross-border payments solution platform.
The new service will make it easier for overseas Filipinos in the US to conveniently and securely acquire and invest in homes and properties back home in the Philippines.
ALSO READ
Three Startups and a Book: How Winston Damarillo Won 2019
Filipino-Founded 'Venture Builder' Raises P63.2 Million From Global VC Firms
“We see a huge potential in this highly untapped market, which is marked by several barriers for overseas Filipinos,” BayaniPay CEO Winston Damarillo said in a roundtable discussion on Wednesday. “These partnerships allow us to plug the gap in cross-border payments for the real estate investment market worth P1 trillion.”
As much as 60 percent of remittances from OFWs count as investments, Damarillo said, citing data from the World Bank
“It is estimated that roughly P1 trillion of properties are sold every year and 40 percent of that P1 trillion is sold to overseas Filipinos, and half of that is in the US,” he said.
Annual revenues of the real estate market in the Philippines were at P1 trillion as of 2019, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
"Our partnerships with key industry leaders enable Filipino immigrants to conveniently pay their property investments in the Philippines at zero transaction fees and with competitive exchange rates,” he said. “We are making it easier for Filipino to reinvest back to the Philippines.”
.jpg)
BayaniPay’s Bills Pay offers customers the benefits of monthly auto debit and paying using an eligible funding source so they no longer have to open a separate bank account in the Philippines. Meanwhile, real estate developers can collect, automate, and reconcile payments with ease through the platform’s custom dashboard.
“Our partnership with BayaniPay bolsters our continuing effort to provide value to Filipinos in the US and help them experience living the good life,” said SMDC President Jose Mari H. Banzon. “That also means giving them innovative solutions that make the purchase of their properties easy and worry-free, especially now that the real estate industry is expected to boom.”
Ortigas Land International Marketing Director Arles Montefalcon II also noted that the partnership will support the recovery of the real estate market this year and beyond.
“Our partnership with BayaniPay enables us to leverage new technologies to provide our customers in the US greater value for their investments,” he said.
Overseas Filipinos remit as much as 14 times per year to the Philippines, Damarillo estimates. Payments for their investments in real estate are separate transactions that amount, ranging between $350 to $2,000 per month, depending on the size of the property.
BayaniPay has been serving the Filipino-American market through partnerships with East West Bank of America and BDO since 2021. It currently has over 10,000 users, mostly in California, Hawaii, New Jersey, and Alaska.
