BayaniPay, a financial service for global professionals, has raised $4.5 million in seed funding from East West Bank, Wavemaker Partners, and Talino Venture Labs.

Earlier this year, BayaniPay contracted with East West Bank, the largest independent bank headquartered in Southern California, to offer Filipino American customers banking services, including a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insured checking account. East West Bank joins BDO Unibank, the Philippines’ largest bank; Asian Journal, one of the leaders in the Asian American media industry; and Seafood City, the largest Filipino-owned supermarket chain in the U.S., in BayaniPay’s roster of industry-leading collaborators.

This collaboration positions BayaniPay as the first cross-border, digital financial service for the Filipino American community, which is 4.2 million strong and accounts for $146 billion or 14.4% of the Asian American market in the United States: a segment that has been previously underserved by traditional banks and other financial institutions.

BayaniPay offers easy, convenient, and low cost cross-border financial services from the United States to the Philippines. Its customers enjoy a host of benefits from its feature-rich platform, including access to a digital checking account, a debit card that maximizes spending power, and zero fee remittance and market-leading forex rates for Filipino Americans who are sending money home.

Expanding global financial services powered by BDO Unibank

In cooperation with BDO Unibank, BayaniPay will deliver more financial solutions to Filipinos in the U.S. soon.

BayaniPay is collaborating with BDO Unibank to enable its users in the U.S. to directly pay services in the Philippines through paycode technologies. Local businesses and services can simply provide Filipino American customers paycodes that they can use for easy and convenient cross-border payment of bills, tuition and school fees, medical expenses, and even real estate.

By working together with BayaniPay, BDO Unibank continues to find ways to provide convenience to global professionals.

Breaking ceilings in the digital banking landscape

Within its first three months in the market, BayaniPay disrupted the digital remittance industry by offering, through BDO Unibank, zero fees and market-leading exchange rates. Its neobank expansion allows customers to open a digital bank account with a Visa debit card in the United States through East West Bank—enabling faster, frictionless cross-border payments and rewards on customer transactions.

“On behalf of East West Bank, I applaud BayaniPay’s progress in our digital banking technology to provide omnichannel banking as a service to underserved customers,” said Parker Shi, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of East West Bank. “This means that BayaniPay customers can enjoy the same quality of service, whether they’re banking with their mobile devices or transacting at their local East West Bank branch.”

Since announcing its expansion, BayaniPay has gained over 7,000 users and its work in disrupting the global banking landscape has caught the attention of many digital publications, including Forbes and American Banker.

“We are excited about how quickly BayaniPay has grown since we first launched,” said BayaniPay CEO Winston Damarillo. “Our ongoing efforts are driven by the desire to eliminate the financial hardships of new immigrants and minority communities.”

The fresh capital from East West Bank and Wavemaker Partners will allow BayaniPay to expand the technology team as the company scales its product lineup and expands into more geographies.

“Streamlining cross border payment systems have become more urgent than ever as remittances grow in scale from overseas workers. Unfortunately, even in this day and age, existing remittance methods remain painful and expensive for the average remitter. BayaniPay is addressing this pain point with their suite of payment solutions that simplifies the various types of remittances. Whether the need is peer-to-peer, consumer-to-business or business-to-business, BayaniPay has created intuitive solutions to make this payment journey a simple and cost effective exercise,” said Eric Manlunas, Founder and Managing Partner of Wavemaker Partners.