TranSwap & Currencycloud opening up opportunities for Asia-Pacific
Background
Despite Asia having a robust Fintech landscape, with AliPay an established presence, and Revolut and Nium expanding into the region, there is still a strong, entrenched trust in bricks and mortar banks from many SMEs. Many still use traditional banks to conduct their transactional banking – despite digital payments rapidly gaining momentum during the Covid pandemic, with the region now the world-leader in cashless transactions, predicted to grow 16% between 2020-2025.
This didn’t stop cross-border payments platform TranSwap setting up in Singapore in 2017. Aware that many traditional SMEs were cautious about digital banking, TranSwap decided to make the bold move to offer them digital international cross-border banking solutions, to make it easier and less costly than using banks for them to transact not just in the Asia-Pacific region but globally.
Challenge
For payments it’s all about connectivity, and the ability to receive payments quickly is a strong proposition if you’re serving the B2B market. TranSwap looked for a partner who would allow businesses to receive money – an important requirement, as their SE Asia clients needed to be able to receive funds. Currencycloud fitted the bill. They created a white-label platform which meant TranSwap could go to market quickly.
Solution
TranSwap was galvanized to push further and give its clients the international banking experience they deserved. It’s why in 2019 TranSwap was keen to participate in Currencycloud’s pilot for Currencycloud Spark, a multi-currency ewallet that would allow their customers to hold up to 34 currencies in separately numbered accounts, allowing them to operate as a local in multiple territories, simplify reconciliation, and hold or convert different currencies when it suited them, including taking advantage of FX rates.
Such was the success of the Currencycloud Spark pilot program for TranSwap and its clients, that in June 2020 TranSwap utilized Currencycloud Spark to power its Global Account.
TranSwap and Currencycloud often work together to innovate for TranSwap’s clients. Currencycloud worked closely with Transwap to create a bespoke solution that allowed a global credit financing company to issue named accounts for their customers so they could reconcile their accounts more easily.
Results
Says Benjamin Wong, CEO and Founder of TranSwap, “Currencycloud Spark provided us with the most complete solution: UK, EU, US accounts and SWIFT transactions, which was very important to us. The ability to convert, hold, and send within our Asia market is vital, and Currencycloud Spark has enabled this. We like that the Currencycloud Spark platform has all the functionality a business needs. It was easy to onboard and work with. We like that it enabled us to go to market quickly and provide this unique solution to empower Asian businesses to go global.”
The ability to have named accounts for all the UK, EU and US accounts TranSwap sends money to is useful as-well. Benjamin Wong explains, “In Asia, even with a Virtual Account, banks still require the name TranSwap to be on the transactions. Our clients are very happy that we have named accounts, and this differentiates us from our competitors.”
Benjamin Wong added, “Currencycloud Spark has helped us to sell to newly incorporated companies who are looking to set up in Asia. Working with Currencycloud has definitely helped these newly incorporated companies set up and expand faster.”
TranSwap currently uses Currencycloud Spark via the Currencycloud Direct platform, with a view to migrate to the Currencycloud APIs, so all of these activities can be completed on the TranSwap application. That way, the service can scale as TranSwap grows. Since its launch, TranSwap’s Global Account has seen a huge uptake in interest from TranSwap’s customers.
