Why should sending money be so hard?

“Make transfers and payments frictionless.”

That single sentence, written on October 21, 2013, became the very first step in bringing Toss’ simple money transfer into the world. While iconic American companies were born in college dorm rooms or in garages, Toss took root in the ordinary streets of Seoul, where people’s everyday lives take place.

Around that time, four team members were scattered across Seoul, searching for the right business idea. They observed how people behaved, what inconveniences they faced, and where they spent most of their time. From these field observations came more than a hundred potential ideas like services for rating restaurant menus, a platform for amateur singers to upload performance videos, an app that takes photos of and stores receipts, and among them was making “money transfers and payments frictionless.”

Toss, in other words, didn’t set out from the start to be a “fintech startup.” The goal was simply to build something people genuinely needed, whatever that might be. This determination wasn’t built overnight. Before launching Toss, its founder Seunggun Lee had spent five years pursuing projects he wanted to do and building products he wanted to create. He failed eight times. Those repeated disappointments came to a costly and painful realization : it’s not about what I want to do, it’s about what people want.

The reasons for his repeated failures finally became clear. At the same time, Seunggun Lee found himself in turmoil. He had started a company to pursue what he loved, only to realize that chasing what he wanted would never lead to success. (...) “It was a wake-up call. I told myself to stop messing around. Forget what you want , forget your ego. From now on, chase what will succeed. Let go of the pride. You’re just someone who makes what people want.” - Kyounghwa Jung, No Ordinary Challenge, Bookstone, 2022, p.29–30

It was clear that people wanted ‘convenient’ finance. In the early 2010s, sending money online in Korea was likened to performing a small ritual. You had to install specific software, import your accredited certificate, dig out your security card to enter the code, and then type in a one-time password. Even the simplest everyday moments of splitting a dinner bill with a friend or paying for something online were unnecessarily cumbersome. The world was rapidly moving online, but money transfers and payments remained stuck in the past. Overseas, things were different. In the United States, PayPal and Cash App were already well established, and in the UK, TransferWise (now Wise) had gained traction. Toss began with a simple question : Why should sending and receiving money be so difficult?

A few years earlier, Seunggun Lee had been making donations to the Purme Foundation, a relationship that began while he was working at a dental hospital for people with disabilities. One day, a question crossed his mind: “What authority does the Purme Foundation have to withdraw money directly from my bank account?” That single thought became the starting point. (...) The answer was in recurring payments. He discovered that recurring payments weren’t just used for nonprofit donations, but also for things like paying for milk deliveries or newspaper subscriptions. When a business used such recurring payments, it could automatically withdraw funds from a customer’s account on a set date and deposit them into the designated account. (…) Finally, it seemed as though he had found a solution. - Kyounghwa Jung, No Ordinary Challenge, Bookstone, 2022, p.35–36

On February 23, 2015, Toss officially introduced its simple money transfer service to the world. Open the app, enter the amount, type in an account number or contact, and finish with a password made of just four digits and one letter. That was it. The transfer was complete. To reassure users who thought it was almost too easy, Toss displayed a message on the screen: “The transfer is complete. Really.”

People responded quickly. Three out of ten users came back the following week, and seven out of ten returned a month later.^* The daily transaction volume and number of active users grew 1.4 times every week. That meant four to five times more activity in just a month, a pace rarely seen in financial apps. After a long, arduous journey, Toss finally found itself at the real starting line. Along the way, it embedded two lessons into its DNA: create services people truly need, and never be afraid of failure. * In the weeks right after launch, Toss’ weekly retention exceeded 30%, and its monthly retention reached as high as 70%.

I realized that victory comes with humility, and with the courage to admit your weaknesses. To me, success begins when you no longer fear the sting of failure. Two teams can pursue the same idea, but it’s the mindset that determines which team succeeds. - Seunggun Lee, Toss Team Leader, ”The Beginning of Toss: PO SESSION”, Toss YouTube channel

Toss started to raise more questions. “Why should people have to pay to check their credit?” “Why does getting a loan take so long?” “Why is investment so complicated?” These were the kind of questions that were so plain and ordinary that most people overlooked. But Toss didn’t let them pass. It started searching for answers, and those answers turned into services that changed the market. From industry-first offerings like free credit checks and a loan comparison service to Toss Securities, which made investing accessible directly from your phone, and Toss Bank, which made banking as easy and casual as daily life, each question became a spark for everyday change.

By the summer of 2025, Toss had surpassed 30 million cumulative users. What began as a simple money transfer app had grown to offer more than 100 services, present at nearly every moment when money moves. The number of services has expanded, but the North Star remains unchanged: to question the obvious, find better answers, and redefine the standards of the world. The questions drawn from people’s everyday lives remain at the heart of Toss, fueling its extraordinary challenge even today.

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