Homegrown 4xLabs expands into Malaysia and Indonesia
Singapore
SINGAPORE-based startup, 4xLabs, has announced the second expansion of its Get4x service into Malaysia and Indonesia, bringing the total number of countries to five.
Get4x, a location-based application, launched in 2012, allows consumers to search for the best exchange rates offered by money changers in Asian cities without having to physically go down to the changers.
This comes amid people flocking to the money changers due to Brexit and the recent dip in the Australian dollar.
Julien Labruyere, founder and CEO of 4xLabs, said: "The biggest difficulty in the market is the constantly changing rates. The rates are never fixed and the difficulty is in getting access to these updated rates."
However, despite the economic fluctuations, Mr Labruyere is positive about taking the company forward.
"We've constantly been getting requests from our users for Get4x to be available in more cities. We see a lot of travel between Malaysia, Singapore and the rest of the region, so it made sense to get Kuala Lumpur on the list sooner rather than later.
"In fact, a survey earlier this year by Mastercard showed that Kuala Lumpur is the fourth most popular city for travel in the region with 11.3 million overnight visitors."
The announcement comes after its first expansion out of Singapore into Bangkok, Hong Kong and Mumbai in March this year. According to Mr Labruyere, the currency rates are sorted based on popularity.
Some rates function on a real-time basis obtained through the changers while some are based on prediction from data analytics at 4xLabs.
While the rates and proximity of the money changers could be viewed on the app, users would need to sign up or login via Facebook to access more details such as the name of the owner, rating of the store, address, contact details and opening hours.
Mr Labruyere said that over the next month they are looking to set up a live-chat on the app where people can interact directly with the currency changers.
In 2012, the company recorded 2,000 downloads and 800 registered users. Today, it has 50,000 downloads and 20,000 registered users.
Get4x is available for free download on Apple iTunes and Google Play stores.
