Currencycloud signs up Starling Bank for new multi-currency account
Currencycloud has signed up UK challenger Starling Bank, Singapore-based money transfer fintech TranSwap, and Canadian remittance fintech Remitr for its new multi-currency wallet.
The London-based payments platform’s offering, called ‘Currencycloud Spark’, allows fintechs and financial institutions (FIs) to provide global multi-currency accounts.
Banking providers rarely provide multi-currency accounts
These first clients and their customers can receive, store funds and make payments in more than 30 different currencies.
Helping businesses trade with each other
Historically, the global market has revolved around the US and the US dollar. But in the last decade, overseas expansion has become vital for start-ups as well as large corporates.
“Businesses are competing directly with other countries,” Alfred Nader, North American president of foreign exchange firm OFX, told Pymnts last month.
“And the way you compete to get clients — apart from having a superior product — is to make it easy to do business with you.”
Companies generally either rely on a legacy correspondent banking network where funds bounce between FIs. The alternative is that, firms open bank accounts in each market they operate in. This is difficult for start-ups to manage with the little resources they have.
Banking providers rarely provide multi-currency accounts. This is why Currencycloud Spark is a big game changer when banks like Starling adopt it.
How Currencycloud Spark works
The account uses unique International Bank Account Numbers (IBANs) so all transactions can go through one multi-currency wallet in a business’ own name.
With the pilot kicking off in 2019, the new product has signed up “over 30” fintechs globally, the firm claims. One of Remitr’s “newest customers” has saved $1,400 in less than two months, according to Currencycloud.
Starling will use the multi-currency wallet to allow its small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) customers to open USD accounts. TranSwap will use Currencycloud Spark to power its new product: Global Borderless Virtual Account (GBVA).
Read next: Currencycloud nabs e-money licence from Dutch central bank
