Toss to waive remittance fees for foreigners this year

Foreign customers use the Toss platform / Courtesy of Toss

Toss, operated by Viva Republica, will waive international remittance fees for foreign customers in Korea through December, the mobile platform operator said Friday.

The waiver will be applied to four countries including the U.S., China, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

The move is intended to enhance foreign customers' experiences with Toss’s convenient and secure financial services.

Last month, Toss launched an international remittance service for foreign customers in partnership with SentBe, a global remittance platform specializing in global money transfers that is widely used in Korea.

Friday’s decision is a continued expansion of the “Free Transfers for Life,” a key customer campaign launched in 2021 to permanently waive money transfer fees for domestic transactions.

Toss said its users saved a combined 2 trillion won ($1.43 billion) in domestic transfer fees under the program.

About 1.5 million long-term foreign residents in Korea will be able to send money to their home counties without additional charges.

Those residents constitute 64 percent of the total 2.19 million long-term residents in Korea, according to the justice ministry. This means two out of three long-term foreign residents will benefit from the program.

“This promotion goes beyond simply waiving fees. This reflects our commitment to strengthening financial services that include both Korean and foreign users,” a Toss official said.

“We will continue to roll out services tailored to the needs of our foreign customers.”

Viva Republica said Aug. 14 that its revenue for the first half of this year exceeded 1.23 trillion won, up 35 percent compared to the previous year.

Operating profits came to 154.6 billion won and their net profit was 105.7 billion won on a consolidated basis.