TransferMate — Solution overview of cross-border payments capabilities

This Spend Matters PRO brief looks at the TransferMate solution and how the payments provider handles cross-border transactions.

More and more, companies are engaged on a cross-border basis as marketplace sellers — to pay freelancers, to handle global SaaS subscriptions or just to make payments not only to vendors but in support of contractors, one-off buys, landlords, etc.

But increasingly smaller and mid-size businesses — say those under $50 million — need the payments and currency management features of a global treasury system without all the other sophisticated bells and whistles. Today, the SWIFT messaging standard and the correspondent banking network is how the vast majority of cross-border payments move. Yet sending and receiving cross-border payments through banks can be a costly proposition for businesses. The old legacy model works, but it is antiquated and inefficient in terms of fees, foreign exchange markups and lack of transparency.

Over the last several years, the market has become increasingly competitive with vendors attempting to disrupt the status quo. Vendors combining cross-border payments and currency management can be thought of as global treasury networks offered as-a-service to small and mid-sized businesses. Core offerings include:

• open multi-currency virtual bank accounts without the hassles of physical bank accounts
• invoice and receive global payments from buyers anywhere
• pay global suppliers in local currency (reducing their conversion costs and making it easier to do business)
• turn cross-border payments into domestic ones, thereby reducing costs

Additional services could also be offered around working capital (lending), digital wallets, cards attached to the borderless account and VAT services.

TransferMate is one such vendor that enables businesses to send and receive payments in local currency with a few simple steps. They are regulated in 162 countries, with a money movement license in 51 U.S. states, as well as a technology interface that can eliminate problems of SWIFT reconcilement in addition to fee advantage and speed. Their aim is to simplify domestic and international payments for small and medium-size businesses.