Regalii is making it easier for people to pay their family’s bills in real-time back home.
The company currently offers its services in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, the Philippines and other countries. Now Regalii plans to expand to Jamaica — which is likely to drive one of its first major inroads in Brooklyn.
“We know that there is a huge population of Jamaican people in Brooklyn and we think we are going to have even more growth,” said Inigo Rumayor Belausteguigoitia, a cofounder of Regalii.
Prior to the Jamaica launch, the company had a stronger presence in Washington Heights, Uptown Manhattan and the Bronx because of the large Latino populations in those areas.
Additionally, some of the core features of Regalii include mobile payments and alerts, the ability to pay a bill directly on your smartphone and view account balances.
Regalii is not only working on the platform, but it’s also focusing on its B2B relationships with companies such as Ria Money Transfer, La Nacional and IDT.
“On the origination side, which is where you can actually go to pay the bills, we have made a lot of progress and closed some very big partnerships with Ria, and also IDT which is one of the biggest providers of services for immigrants,” said Rumayor.
While the online platform is easy-to-use, the Regalii team has recognized that a number of its consumers don’t have access to technology, which means they’ve had to offer various in-store services as well.
“The mass of the market is basically offline, people are paying with cash,” said Rumayor. “In five years, it will be mainly online, but right now, it’s mainly offline so we started by going to the mass market.”
With 37,000 partners and more than 300 types of bills you can pay, the team at Regalii has set its sights on expanding to other regions of the world that would benefit from a service that helps pay remittances.
“We are in the process of expanding to Africa, for example Nigeria, Egypt, and also to other countries in the Caribbean and Latin America,” Rumayor said.
Regalii, which started in 2012, is also run by cofounders Edrizio De La Cruz and Juan Maldonado. The company is backed by Y-Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz, Maverick and more.