Payment Industry Analysis

Can Revolut make enough money per customer to take a meaningful enough share of wallet to really play with the big banks?

The challenger bank landscape is beginning to shake out as each bank finds its market position. All are in heavy development and acquisition mode, fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars of fundraising.

Starling Bank founder and CEO, Anne Boden, was ahead of the curve. She spent more than a few years at big banks - she forged an entire career there before moving on to found Starling Bank in 2014.

I've recently attended Money20/20 Europe in Amsterdam, uncovering the latest innovations in international payments and discussing the state of the industry. Cross-border payments remains one of the most complex parts of the industry.

A look at patterns of employee growth (and decline) in international payments. Also - Starling Bank breaks up with Transferwise

International payments company OFX recently announced the launch of their Global Currency Account for Ecommerce Marketplace sellers. This latest multi-currency product launch shows the ongoing evolution of the industry.

This week, our CEO, Daniel Webber, had the pleasure of sitting down with new RationalFX CEO, Chris Humphrey. Many topics were covered - from technology to steady expansion of a brand. What struck us as most interesting about the conversation with Chris?

Last week Revolut announced they have reached Unicorn status with a $1.7bn dollar valuation. They have now joined the ranks of Transferwise as one of the fastest growing international payments companies and Finablr (the newly combined UAE Exchange & Travelex) in the billion dollar club.

Launching the products, getting licensed - these both take time but are not giant barriers. Building a trusted brand to go alongside those products is the difference maker.

Pricing strategy is often one of the biggest hurdles for payments companies, but machine learning can help overcome that.

The economic opportunities in Africa extend far beyond remittances.

FXC Intelligence CEO Daniel Webber sat down with Singapore based TransferTo CEO, Eric Barbier. Eric shed some light on what makes TransferTo unique in the busy money transfer space.

Last week, Equistone, a European private equity firm, announced it is acquiring Small World Financial for an undisclosed amount. With revenues over £110m, Equistone has bought themselves a strong platform on which to build a significant remittance player.

Oftentimes, consumers think of banks when they think of forward contracts, but many non-bank currency providers offer forward contracts to their customers.

The big three English speaking markets of the UK, US, and Australia are for consumer and corporate FX are very different.

Many of the current fintech players have been around for a decade or less and over the next five years, we expect to see a lot of exits as private equity or venture capital groups begin looking to cash out