Currencycloud: Cross-border payments and visa purchases

Carving out a niche

Raising its first round of investment in 2012, Currencycloud was acquired by Visa in 2021 following a commercial partnership and investment. For Arundel, selling all of Currencycloud’s shares, although a difficult choice, was the right thing to do. “We actually have a common purpose. Visa talks about empowering everyone everywhere by being the best way to pay and get paid.

“It’s not like Visa bought us for revenue or anything like that. They actually say that together we can go and solve this challenge. And after our initial partnership, seeing how we operate, seeing mutual customers and mutual benefit we can bring to some of their other types of assets, it’s a compelling proposition.”

For Arundel, joining Visa was like “entering a door into a larger room. We are still trying to solve the challenges of cross-border payment problems, but with more people around the table. How can I get my money overseas as quickly and cost-effectively as possible for the best experience for other retail users or businesses? This is still a process that both Visa and Currencycloud are working to resolve, and there is still much more we can do.”

A time for customer focus

With much more to do to improve cross-border payments, now is the time for innovations and customer-focused products to come to market, according to Arundel. In times of economic hardship, it is more important than ever for people to transfer money abroad as efficiently as possible.

“I think what any financial crisis does is people can focus on their core and obsess about their customers. And I think that’s what embedded finance companies should do is obsess about their customers. I think things may have gone — between the post-pandemic , pre-economic meltdown periods – kind of crazy.

“It was a world where finance was big. Every time you turned on the computer, there would be a new banking application, a new built-in application for something. So I think now is a time to focus on how we can solve the customer’s problem. Which financial services people want built into an application, and where does that make sense?”

Remains compatible

Of course, despite the need to resolve customer issues, compliance remains high on the agenda for Currencycloud. “It’s a balance between innovation and that duty from a compliance point of view. You have to make sure that the partnerships in this area are put together in the right way and that people know what they’re doing so that those who offer consumer-facing business aren’t like four or five links removed from what’s going on,” says Arundel.

“I think sometimes people look at compliance as just getting on board the business or the individual, but there are all kinds of post-transactional things that go with it like transaction monitoring, screening transactions and understanding how people are trying to get that system and sent money around the world.

“Bad guys will always try to find ways to get around the traditional banking systems. So maybe they’ll creep into these embedded finance companies, and that’s something the industry needs to be wary of. But luckily, there are companies out there that have compliance at the top of the agenda.”