Philippines based mobile payment service Abra joins hands with Codapay

Philippines-based mobile payment service Abra has announced a partnership with Singapore-based e-payment gateway Codapay.

With this new deal, Abra users in the Philippines will be able to purchase Steam wallet codes, Skype credit, Amazon gift cards and Battle.net cards by paying with Abra at Codapay’s retail site, Codashop.

“It is Abra’s goal to provide its users a better way to send and receive money, and to pay for things online. I am incredibly happy to partner with Codapay, a company whose vision of financial inclusion aligns with ours,” said Bill Barhydt, founder and CEO of Abra, in an official press statement.

Founded in 2014, Abra leverages on blockchain technology to store digital cash on users’ smartphones. Credits in the mobile wallet can be topped up via any accredited Abra teller (which incurs a small fee) or through the users’ bank accounts. Users can also transfer cash to other users via the app — including cross-border money transfers between Philippines and the US.

To date, it has raised a total of US$14 million in three funding rounds.

While mobile payment services such as Smart Money and GCash have been operating in the Philippines for a decade, the country is experiencing a surge in mobile payment adoption due to the increasing smartphone penetration rate and growth of e-commerce (which is set to hit US$1.01 billion in revenue this year).

Additionally, a Mastercard survey revealed that 17 per cent of consumers and 15 per cent of consumers in Philippines have made mobile commerce purchases and p2p transactions respectively.