Swych Aims to Make Travel to US Easier by Eliminating Currency Conversion
When traveling, converting money to the local currency is one of the things that people hate most. Usually you end up losing on average about 8%. Swych is looking to change that. For now they’re aiming to help those who visit United States to avoid these fees, by making it possible to purchase gift cards an use them directly through their app, for in store purchases.
Swych has announced a partnership with both Travelex and Chinese social media giant, WeChat, to create a currency-agnostic payment portal for use at Swych’s 500+ U.S. retail partners. 3 million annual Chinese tourists that visit the US will be able to shop more seamlessly and conveniently.
This is another step in Swych’s mission to further expand its global footprint. Just recently they acquired India’s largest gift card provider, GiftCardsIndia.
Using Swych for purchases seems pretty easy. For completing the purchase of goods at a participating Swych retailer in the USA, an electronic gift card is generated through WeChat Pay app by the user, and the user’s WeChat Pay wallet account is instantly debited in their home currency. The cashier then scans the barcode or enters the number at checkout and the retailer gets paid instantly in USD.
Gift cards can be created by the user either while at the checkout or at any point before purchase. They can also end up saving money through some of the gift card deals that Swych offers.
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Sounds like a more complicated version of Revolut
This won’t work until they figure out how to let people with non us phones use the app.
My iPhone is logged in with the Canadian app store and I have been unsuccessful in getting this app to work. Another issue could be if they are overly aggressive on the phone verification requiring us phone numbers.
Until they have a working web application or an openly available app this can’t possibly work.
They are trying to solve bigger problems but can’t even make it easy for someone who appears to be a Canadian (who will undoubtedly be their easiest international market for this) to use their app.
Interesting – thanks for the background info Al. Sounds like they have a lot of bugs to work out still.