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Int'l talent a 'logical' choice: SentBe CEO touts value of foreign employees for the global market

Published: 08 Jul. 2025, 13:31

LEE TAE-HEE
[email protected]

SentBe CEO Alex Choi talks during an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily on June 30. [PARK SANG-MOON]

For foreigners wanting to work in Korea's fintech industry with a multinational team, and getting some flexibility through remote work or flextime, SentBe may be one of the companies to consider during a job search.

SentBe, based in the financial district of Yeouido in western Seoul, is a company that provides overseas remittance services in over 50 countries, and also operates a second office in Singapore.

Founded in 2015, SentBe offers retail remittance through a service that carries the eponymous name and also provides corporate remittance service through SentBiz. Starting July 2, the company is also working with Toss to offer overseas remittance through the Toss application.

Foreigners in Korea have always been key customers of SentBe's overseas remittance service, and bringing foreign talent on board has been a logical choice.

"Our company offers retail and corporate remittance services in Korea and abroad, and the primary customers of our local retail remittance are foreigners in Korea," said Alex Choi, CEO of SentBe. "To effectively market and explain our services to those people, its essential for us to hire people who have lived in the same country or share the same nationality as our customers, and we've naturally hired talent from countries we service in."

There are around 30 foreigners working as regular employees at SentBe, with nationalities varying from Vietnamese, Indonesian and Chinese.

SentBe hosts the SentBe Cup, a football match between foreign communities in Korea, in Oct. 13, 2024. [SENTBE]

However, the number becomes bigger when including part-timers and interns.

For instance, the company has been running a Global Marketing Internship program for international students since May and has hired 20 interns. The internship is open on a rolling basis, and the company aims to hire around 90 interns throughout the program.

Working with a global team isn't a recent decision, with SentBe starting off with foreign employees from the beginning.

"We have an employee from the Philippines, who I think was our seventh hire, that was with us from the early days and even worked alongside us to do offline marketing in Hyehwa-dong," said Choi. "That employee is still with us now, and we even have foreign employees who work here as a married couple, or people who worked with us but later moved on to global partner companies — and we still collaborate with them today."

While foreigners are welcome in all positions at the company, SentBe has traditionally had a lot of international employees in marketing or customer experience.

The company tends to require two interviews in the hiring process, with the first one being a job competency interview and the second a culture-fit interview.

SentBe CEO Alex Choi poses for a photo at the company's Seoul office in Yeouido, western Seoul, before an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily on June 30. [PARK SANG-MOON]

"During the job competency interview, we delve into the candidate's work-related experience and assess whether their competencies meet the required level for each position," said Leah Baik, an HR manager at SentBe. "Those who pass the stage proceed to the second culture-fit interview, and we assess how well candidates align with our company based on our three core values, their working style and way of thinking."

SentBe has three core values — professional, proactive and customer-centric. It is a plus when applicants show they have those qualities during the interview.

The company defines professionalism as the employees' commitment to developing expertise in their roles, and striving to improve by questioning what they do, how they do it and why. Having a proactive mindset is another core value, which encourages employees to not be complacent, think ahead and aim for better performance. Being customer-centric is a key value as SentBe offers remittance services, placing a strong focus on understanding and prioritizing customers.

CEO Choi added industry-related experience would be strongly considered, along with candidates that show passion and drive.

Although different for each position, Choi tends to sit in for the culture-fit interview.

One thing applicants can expect is questions about communication capabilities, along with a lot of follow-up questions.

"I do ask questions based on our core values, and also questions about the applicant's communication skills," said Choi. "It's not easy to fully understand who the person is no matter how many interviews you do, and I tend to ask a lot of follow-up questions because I want to figure out whether someone is more light-minded or has depth to them."

One perk of working at SentBe — although the company doesn't necessarily see this as a work benefit — is the opportunity to have flexible work hours and work from home on certain days.

While remote work and flextime may have been policies many companies implemented following the Covid-19 pandemic, for SentBe, remote work is something natural that can boost work effectiveness.

"I don't even consider remote work as a benefit for employees, and it's a policy we implemented to help employees do their work better," said Choi. "We have four co-founders and two of them were abroad when we first started the company, and we just naturally started with a remote work policy and went with it ever since."

Employees can work at home on certain days depending on their team or work requirements. The company was even chosen as an outstanding flexible work company by the Ministry of Employment and Labor in 2024.

Lee Jung-sik, then-minister of employment and labor, visits the SentBe office on Feb. 16, 2024, after the company was selected an an outstanding flexible work company that year. [MINISTRY OF EMPLOYMENT AND LABOR]

Having a company-wide winter vacation between Dec. 26 and Dec. 31, as well as paid leave on birthdays and when employees move are some of the work benefits the company offers.

Another area it focuses on is visa issuance, something integral to a company hiring foreign nationals.

When hiring foreigners as interns, SentBe usually recruits D-2 student visa holders while applying for a work permit, and D-10 job seeker visa holders.

Regular employees are either hired by applying for the E-7 work visa or are chosen from those who already have F visas.

Although getting the proper visa or work permit is a required process, it hasn't always been easy.

"There were times when one of our directors, although they have moved on to another company now, literally cried while trying to get a work visa for our employee," said Choi. "It's much better now, but there used to be no clear standard in issuing work visas and whether a visa got extended or issued sometimes depended on the immigration officer in charge."

"Technically there were guidelines, but the biggest problem was that they weren't always followed. Things have improved a lot now, and the government is in a position where it has no choice but to issue more work visas."

While visas can be difficult, hiring foreign talent is an area SentBe benefits from and will continue to expand upon.

"Foreign employees come from different backgrounds and cultures, and a strong suit is that they approach work in various difference perspectives," said Choi. "And in terms of marketing, even if Koreans learn about countries and cultures abroad, it's hard to fully understand everything, and foreign employees also help us in those aspects too."

BY LEE TAE-HEE [[email protected]]