Travel Wallet

Travel Wallet is a South Korean foreign exchange and payments fintech that operates an app-based prepaid multi-currency card. Users top up foreign currency in the app and spend it abroad with a physical or contactless card, with the company advertising 0% exchange fees on USD, JPY and EUR, 0% foreign transaction fees and savings of about 2.5% versus credit cards. The product supports 46 currencies and payments at more than 100 million merchants worldwide, cash withdrawal in local currency at Visa-network ATMs, contactless transit payments in major cities, instant refund of unused balances to the user's account, currency-to-currency exchange and peer transfers between users.

Beyond the card, the app includes a social feed for travel tips and travel companions, a group "split payment" feature that lets users share expenses without settling up afterwards, travel and cross-border shopping perks such as traveler's insurance and tours, and in-app card activation/management for lost cards. Its core prepaid foreign-currency payment service is branded Travel Pay. In 2020 the company obtained a Visa card-issuing (principal) license, described as the first in Asia and second globally for a fintech, after being named Visa's first Korean partner in the Fintech Fast Track Program; Travel Pay launched the following year. The company also runs a business-to-business line that designs and consults on cloud-based foreign exchange and payment systems for financial institutions, and has been building infrastructure such as anti-money-laundering and refund systems to process stablecoin transactions.

The company reports 46 supported currencies, cumulative card issuance of over 9.6 million and cumulative transaction volume above 9.8 trillion won (about $7 billion) as of June 2026, up from 7.4 million cards and $6.2 billion in transactions as of February 2025. Management guided to 80–90 billion won of revenue for 2025 while targeting profitability, and monthly active users passed 1.6 million in mid-2025.

Founding story

Founder and CEO Kim Hyung-woo worked in foreign exchange trading roughly a decade before founding the company and was frustrated by outdated market practices — faxes, DOS-based screens and manual price calculation — that he felt lagged 30 years behind modern computing. He founded Travel Wallet in 2017 to simplify and lower the cost of currency exchange and foreign payments, initially pitching dozens of banks and card companies that declined over the IT change required; Visa, then approaching Korean card firms with a similar concept, instead made Travel Wallet the first Korean participant in its Fintech Fast Track Program.

Business model

Travel Wallet issues prepaid multi-currency cards to consumers under a Visa principal issuing license and earns from cross-border payment and foreign exchange transaction flow rather than charging users exchange or foreign transaction fees on major currencies. It runs its payment stack in-house on a cloud-native system, which it also monetizes as a B2B offering — designing, consulting on and operating cloud-based FX and payment infrastructure for banks, card companies and securities firms — and has partnered with incumbents including Shinhan Card, Shinhan Investment, BC Card, KakaoBank and Lotte Card. Adjacent revenue lines include a foreign-currency repurchase-agreement (RP) linked interest product and travel/shopping benefit tie-ins.

Consumer prepaid card and wallet transaction flow across 46 currencies, complemented by B2B payment-infrastructure and cloud FX platform services for financial institutions and card companies; the company guided to 80–90 billion won of sales for 2025.

Traction

As of June 2026 the company reported cumulative card issuance above 9.6 million and cumulative transaction volume above 9.8 trillion won (about $7 billion), against 7.4 million cards and $6.2 billion in transactions as of February 2025 and 7 trillion won ($4.8 billion) as of October 2025. Monthly active users surpassed 1.6 million in July 2025, the split-payment feature passed 2.5 million transactions by April 2026, and app store ratings are cited at 4.9.

Latest developments

In August 2026 Travel Wallet said it had completed underwriting contracts with KB Securities and NH Investment & Securities, selected in June as lead underwriters, and begun converting its financial statements to IFRS with Samjong KPMG, completing two rounds of on-site reviews, targeting a 2027 Kosdaq listing. It launched its Japanese service in April 2026, its first overseas market, and plans to enter the United States next. Earlier in 2026 it reported a valuation of about 370 billion won in its latest round and disclosed that its patented split-payment feature had exceeded 2.5 million transactions as it works toward a cross-border payment network.