Peppermint is testing its global remittance tech in the Philippines, a nation known for exporting people and importing foreign currency.

Remittance is a sum of money sent in payment or as a gift.

Peppermint is launching a new portal called Bizmoto which its piloting in the Philippines. The services will work with the phone banking app it made for Philippines bank UCPB.

Peppermint (ASX:PIL) shares surged 20 per cent to 2.4c on the news.

The company recently said it would buy cash-strapped Australian remittance company AusRemit for an unspecified sum.

Managing director Chris Kain told Stockhead they’re still doing due diligence on the AusRemit deal. The due diligence “hasn’t come up as we’d have liked” but they’re yet to make a decision on that.

Bizmoto has been built to allow the software that comes with acquisitions like AusRemit to be easily rolled into it.

The Philippines is the fifth-largest international remittance market for Australia, transferring $US1 billion in 2016, according to the World Bank.

Remittances are a key earner for poor countries like the Philippines, where people often rely on family members leaving for better paying jobs overseas and sending money home.

 

On those blockchain rumours, Mr Kain says even though they have built their software to allow them to fold in a blockchain option in future, it’s not something they’re looking at or pursuing right now.

“It’s certainly something that we look at. We see that it’s got a fair following the in the market but as it stands at the moment it’s not a focus,” he said.