The world’s 100 top cross-border payment companies in 2022, according to FXC Intelligence.
Cross-border payments are having another strong year, with the post-pandemic landscape spurring a return to travel, digital remittances continuing to boost economies in developing countries, the increasing popularity of international ecommerce and a continuing surge in B2B payments – as well as the rise of crypto. B2B, the most fragmented segment of cross-border payments, continues to provide growth opportunities as well.
One of the best ways to understand an industry is to keep its biggest players front of mind. That’s why FXC Intelligence has released The 2022 Cross-Border Payments 100, a market map that recognises and celebrates the 100 most important players in the cross-border payments space. Now in its fourth year, The Cross-Border Payments 100 profiles the 100 players that truly matter in the sector.
Featuring companies across money transfers, payments processing, ecommerce, B2B and beyond, the map separates the top 100 players into seven groups: VC/growth equity-backed, independently owned, banks, private equity-backed, mobile, crypto and public companies.
There’s been a number of changes to our map this year, with some new entrants to note. For example, Circle joins Ripple and Stellar in our crypto category, while a slew of public debuts has seen several companies move from the VC-backed category to become public companies. Some also now appear under a new name following a rebranding, such as WorldRemit and Sendwave with their new parent company Zepz.
We’ve utilised the combined industry expertise of our team alongside our unique data to make this list the definitive guide to key players in the cross-border space. Scroll down to view The 2022 Cross-Border Payments 100 market map or select from the links below to jump to the relevant section:
- The Top 100 Cross-Border Payment Companies for 2022: Market Map
- The 2022 Cross-Border Payments 100 in detail
- Previous editions of The Cross-Border Payments 100
The Top 100 Cross-Border Payment Companies for 2022: Market Map
Published every year, our market map recognises the leading companies in cross-border payments worldwide, including publicly traded companies, startups and private companies. It covers companies operating across consumer money transfers and remittances, B2B payments, ecommerce companies, payment processors, crypto providers and beyond.
Here’s The 2022 Cross-Border Payments Top 100 in full:
To make our list, companies have to fulfill certain criteria:
- Be of a certain scale. This is not a startup or VC list (there are lots of those). This is also not a challengers list (we have one of those too).
- Companies don’t have to have raised outside funds, but they must have an established customer base.
- Cross-border payments must either be the primary activity (many payment companies) or a substantial revenue line (certain banks, payment processors or card companies). With subsidiaries, we include them in the parent company, rather than listing them separately.
And our sense check: if we removed the company, would it have a meaningful impact on the sector? We track over 15,000 players in the space, making this 100 the cream of the crop.
The 2022 Cross-Border Payments 100 in detail
Key information about every company in FXC Intelligence’s 2022 cross-border payments top 100, divided by company type. Scroll down to view the full list, or click to jump to the relevant section:
- VC-backed (growth stage)
- Independently owned
- Banks
- Private equity-backed
- Mobile
- Crypto
- Public companies (non-banks)
VC-Backed (Growth Stage)
Investors continue to back cross-border payments with venture capital in 2022. Here, we’ve rounded up the biggest VC-backed cross-border payments companies for this year.
Airwallex
Founded: 2015
CEO: Jack Zhang
Customer focus: Marketplace Sellers, SMEs
Airwallex was founded in Melbourne, Australia, and has since grown to over 1,000 people in 19 offices worldwide. It has raised over $700m and is one of the payment sector’s unicorns. It initially focused on the marketplace sellers market offering payouts to sellers, primarily those based in China. Its product set has since expanded to cover small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and card-based products.
Azimo
Founded: 2012
CEO: Richard Ambrose
Customer focus: Remittances, Small Businesses
Founded in the UK and now headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Azimo is an online remittance service that offers instant and one-hour money transfers to more than 80 countries, and has served more than 2 million customers. In 2020, the company expanded its services to Australia and Canada, and in 2021 it secured a licence in Hong Kong.
Checkout.com
Founded: 2012
CEO: Guillaume Pousaz
Customer focus: Merchants, Fintechs
Launched as a cloud-based payment platform in 2012, Checkout.com has grown to over 1,700 employees in 19 global offices. It now specialises in processing international payments for ecommerce businesses and other fintechs, and offers an all-in-one payment solution for merchants that eliminates the need for intermediaries. The company processes payments across more than 150 currencies. Earlier this year, Checkout.com raised a further $1bn at a $40bn valuation, making it one of the most valuable payment processors globally.
Chipper Cash
Founded: 2018
CEO: Ham Serunjogi
Customer focus: Consumers, B2B Payments
Based in San Francisco, US, Chipper Cash builds software to enable free and instant peer-to-peer cross-border payments in Africa and Europe, as well as solutions for businesses and merchants to process online and in-store payments. In November 2021, the company raised $150m in a Series C extension round and was given a $2bn valuation, taking it into unicorn territory.
EMQ
Founded: 2014
CEO: Max Liu
Customer focus: SMEs, Large Enterprises
Hong-Kong-based EMQ is a leading international payments network with a global reach throughout Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe and North America. The company recently enabled real-time cross-border payments to Pakistan. EMQ is one of a small number of fast-growing aggregators helping connect banks and fintechs around the globe.
EBANX
Founded: 2011
CEO: João Del Valle
Customer focus: SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs
EBANX is a leading payment solutions company in Latin America, primarily focusing on Brazil. It has helped major companies conduct commerce with over 70 million Latin American consumers. The company recently celebrated its ten-year anniversary with the news that it had processed nearly 1 billion transactions. In June of 2021, EBANX raised a $430m round to help fuel further growth.
Flutterwave
Founded: 2016
CEO: Olugbenga Agboola
Customer focus: SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs
Flutterwave is a Nigerian fintech providing payment infrastructure for global merchants and payment service providers in Africa. In February, it saw its valuation grow to $3bn in a Series D funding round – more than triple its valuation twelve months earlier.
iBanFirst
Founded: 2013
CEO: Pierre-Antoine Dusolier
Customer focus: SMEs, Large Enterprises
iBanFirst is a French fintech that offers an online platform for multicurrency transactions. It now allows businesses to send and receive payments in over 30 currencies to and from 150+ countries. In May 2021, the company announced it had completed a funding partnership with private equity firm Marlin Equity Partners. Through the deal, Marlin became iBanFirst’s largest shareholder, helping to fund its product development and international expansion.
Kantox
Founded: 2011
CEO: Philippe Gelis
Customer focus: SMEs, Large Enterprises, Financial Services
Kantox provides currency management automation and hedging software that allows companies to automate their foreign currency workflows, which in turn enables customers to perform immediate foreign exchange transfers across different currencies. The company has offices in London and across Europe.
LianLian Global
Founded: 2003
CEO: David Messenger
Customer focus: Ecommerce, Marketplace Merchants
LianLian Global is an independent cross-border payments fintech based in China that focuses on ecommerce and marketplace payouts. It has expanded into more than 100 countries and regions and serves over 1.1 million cross-border ecommerce and marketplace sellers.
MFS Africa
Founded: 2009
CEO: Dare Okoudjou
Customer focus: Merchants, SMEs, Financial Services
MFS Africa is a pan-African company operating the largest digital payments gateway on the continent. In November 2021, the business raised $100m through its equity and debt financing round. It connects more than 250 merchant customers across 35+ African countries and 700 corridors.
Moneytrans
Founded: 2002
CEO: Jeremy De Smet
Customer focus: Remittances
Since 2002, Belgium-based Moneytrans has served more than 10 million customers around the world, focusing on European outbound markets. Through its app, the company helps customers send money to more than 140 countries and access more than 450,000 payout locations worldwide. The company is planning to roll out further migrant-related financial products having recently raised additional funding.
Nium
Founded: 2014
CEO: Prajit Nanu
Customer focus: Remittances, Fintechs, Ecommerce, Financial Services
Based in Singapore, Nium offers cross-border pay-in and pay-out services to to a full range of corporates, fintechs and financial service companies. In 2021, the company raised $200m in a Series D round, grew to 700 employees, opened its 17th office in Japan and acquired Ixaris, the world’s 3rd largest B2B travel card issuer. Nium also operates InstaReM, its original brand focused on the remittance space.
Paysend
Founded: 2017
CEO: Ronald Millar
Customer focus: Remittances
Paysend is an international money transfer service serving over 6 million customers and 17,000 SMEs that operates in more than 130 countries globally. In May 2021, the UK-based company closed its Series B funding round with a valuation of more than $700m, having raised $125m. Paysend leverages the card networks for its money transfer product.
PingPong
Founded: 2015
CEO: Yu Chen
Customer focus: Merchants, SMEs
PingPong helps more than one million online merchants save money across cross-border payments, VAT payments, supplier payments and more. The company operates across 3 continents and has over 600 employees. It achieved unicorn status in 2020.
Rapyd
Founded: 2015
CEO: Arik Shtilman
Customer focus: SMEs, Ecommerce, Fintechs
Rapyd’s payment network allows businesses to choose from 900 locally preferred payment methods across more than 100 countries. The company raised $300m in its Series E funding round in August 2021. This March, Rapyd achieved a valuation of $15bn, making it Israel’s highest valued unicorn.
Revolut
Founded: 2015
CEO: Nikolay Storonsky
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs
Revolut supports more than 18 million personal users and 500,000 business users across more than 35 countries and 30 in-app currencies. Consumers use its products (primarily through the company’s ‘financial super app’, launched in 2020) to make more than 150 million transactions a month. In 2021, Revolut raised $800m in Series E funding. Revolut is attempting to build a global financial services super app.
Stripe
Founded: 2010
CEO: Patrick Collison
Customer focus: SMEs, Large Enterprises
Co-founded by brothers John and Patrick Collison in 2010, Stripe is a payment processor supporting 135+ currencies and payment methods and operating in more than 35 countries. Stripe receives more than 250 million API requests per day, peaking at 13,000 requests per second. Stripe is generally seen as the most highly valued private fintech globally.
Tipalti
Founded: 2010
CEO: Chen Amit
Customer focus: Mid-Size and Large Enterprises
Tipalti automates the entire accounts payable process and executes global payments. It works with over 2,000 customers, has grown to more than 700 employees and ranked on the 2021 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies in the US. In December, it announced it had raised £204m in Series F funding and was valued at £6.3bn.
Thunes
Founded: 2016
CEO: Peter De Caluwe
Customer focus: Fintechs, Financial Services, Money Transfer Operators
Thunes is a Singapore-based fintech that is a payments network aggregator. It is developing a cross-border payment network for financial services companies and money transfer operators. It currently enables payments to more than 126 countries and accepts payments via 285 methods, spanning 79+ currencies. The company raised $60m in Series B funding in 2020, and in January 2022 announced a new partnership with the World Economic Forum to address systemic inequality in accessing financial services.
TransferMate
Founded: 2010
CEO: Sinead Fitzmaurice
Customer focus: B2B Payments, Education, Financial Services
TransferMate facilitates international payments and receivables transactions for brands around the world. Based in Kilkenny, Ireland, the company has offices in 10+ countries. It enables cross-border payments to 162 countries worldwide, spanning 134 currencies. TransferMate has focused on building its account and regulatory base in all the core countries it operates in.
TransferGo
Founded: 2012
CEO: Daumantas Dvilinskas
Customer focus: Remittances, Small Businesses
Based in London, UK, TransferGo’s primary focus is on remittances. The company announced in September 2021 that it had secured $50m in its Series C funding round and processed 13.5 million international and local transactions, amounting to over $6bn in money flow.
Veem
Founded: 2014
CEO: Marwan Forzley
Customer focus: B2B Payments, SMEs
Founded in 2014 as Align Commerce (changing its name in March 2017), Veem supports domestic or international money transfers to over 110 countries across 70 currencies. The company helps businesses of all sizes streamline their payment process and build relationships with suppliers around the world.
Zai
Founded: 2021
CEO: Paul Byrne
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises
Arising from a merger of Australia’s Assembly Payments and Irish cross-border payments marketplace CurrencyFair in April 2021, Zai was formed to create a cross-borders platform allowing individuals and SMEs to manage their international payments through a digital self-service account. The company now plans to grow from around 170 employees to over 450 by 2025, and aims to expand its presence across APAC, Europe, the Middle-East and the US.
Zepz
Founded: 2009
CEO: Breon Corcoran
Customer focus: Remittances
Formerly WorldRemit Group, Zepz supports digital cross-border payments for more than 11 million users, with 50 million customer transactions processed in 2020 across over 5,000 money transfer corridors. The company owns and operates two leading services for global payments: WorldRemit and Sendwave. Through the WorldRemit app, users can send payments to over 130 countries worldwide, while Sendwave allows P2P payments between Africa and Asia and the rest of the world. Following WorldRemit’s rebrand to Zepz in 2021, the company announced it had raised $292m in its Series E funding round.
Independently owned
Our top cross-border payments companies in this section are independently owned, meaning they are not (at the time of writing) listed on the stock market.
Ant Group
Founded: 2014
CEO: Eric Jing
Customer focus: Consumers, Small Businesses
Formerly known as Ant Financial and Alipay, Ant Group is a fintech and affiliate of Alibaba and owns Alipay, China’s largest digital platform with more than 730 million users. In 2019, the company acquired UK-based payments firm WorldFirst in a deal worth around $700m. In 2020, Ant Group launched a blockchain-based smart contract platform for cross-border trade by SMEs.
Al Ansari Exchange
Founded: 1966
CEO: Rashed Al Ansari
Customer focus: Remittances, SMEs
With more than 200 branches across the UAE and serving over 3 million customers each month, Al Ansari Exchange is an established provider of foreign exchange, remittance, bill payment and corporate services. It claims to be one of the first companies to perform foreign exchange/money transfer services in the UAE.
Al Fardan Exchange
Founded: 1971
CEO: Hasan Fardan
Customer focus: Remittances, SMES, Enterprises
Launched in 1971, Al Fardan Exchange was built on financing expats and incoming businesses. It is now a leading foreign exchange business in Qatar, offering cross-border payments and forex solutions, and has forged relationships with 150 financial services organisations worldwide.
Fexco
Founded: 1981
CEO: Denis McCarthy
Customer focus: B2B Payments
Ireland-based Fexco processes more than €17bn in transactions across the financial exchange, treasury, digital tax and government-backed financing sectors. The company now has over 2,300 employees across 29 countries.
KoronaPay
Founded: 1993
CEO: Gleb Kozlov
Customer focus: Remittances, Financial Services, Merchants
KoronaPay announced that it had reached $1bn in monthly remittances in February 2022. The company has 13 million users, and had until recently been acquiring 10,000 new users a week. It offers payments across nearly 80 countries in Europe, the CIS, the Middle East and Asia.
Mukuru
Founded: 2004
CEO: Andy Jury
Customer focus: Remittances
Mukuru offers cash collections and bank and mobile wallet top-up services, allowing people to send money to Africa from the rest of the world. It recently partnered with WorldRemit to become its remittances payout partner in territories where it has an established network.
Sigue
Founded: 1996
CEO: Guillermo de la Viña
Customer focus: Remittances
Based in California, US, Sigue provides money transfer, remittance and bill payment services. The company has a large network of locations across the US and covers payouts worldwide. In April 2021, Sigue Corporation partnered with MoneyGram to increase its global presence and allow Sigue’s US customers to access MoneyGram’s network.
Travelex
Founded: 1976
CEO: Donald Muir
Customer focus: Remittances, Travel Money
London-based Travelex is a forex company specialising in cross-border payments for remittances and travel purposes, as well as major banks, travel agencies and hotels. The company operates across 20 countries, and has a growing network of over 900 ATMs and more than 1,100 retail outlets.
Banks
The world’s top banks are continuing to expand upon their cross-border payment offerings in 2022. Here are our top banks that serve the cross-border payment sector and in some cases also have large cross-border businesses themselves.
American Express
Founded: 1850
CEO: Stephen Squeri
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Enterprises
One of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, American Express specialises in payment card services. Since it was founded in New York in 1850, the company has grown to become one of the biggest providers of payment card services worldwide. The company reported a a Q4 net income of $1.7bn in 2021, compared with a net income of $1.4bn the year before. American Express operates one of the leading card networks worldwide.
Bank of America
Founded: 1998
CEO: Brian Moynihan
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Bank of America is the second largest banking institution in the US and eighth largest bank in the world. The bank in its current iteration was formed after BankAmerica was acquired by the NationsBank for $62bn, nearly a century after the founding of its first iteration as the Bank of Italy in 1904. Now based in Charlotte, North Carolina, US, the business is estimated to have more than 200,000 employees. It serves approximately 67 million consumer and small business clients with approximately 4,200 retail financial centres. Bank of America provides many parts of the financial and FX infrastructure necessary for many leading cross-border payment companies.
Barclays
Founded: 1690
CEO: C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises
Barclays is a British multinational bank with headquarters in London, UK. It operates in over 40 countries and has more than 83,000 employees. Listed on the FTSE 100 Index, the bank is listed on the London and New York Stock Exchanges. The company’s international payments service supports 60 different currencies across 90 countries. Barclays’ fintech unit serves many hundreds of cross-border payment companies across the globe.
Banorte (UniTeller)
Founded: 1899
CEO: Jose Marcos Ramirez Miguel
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Based in Monterrey and Mexico City, Banorte is one of Mexico’s largest commercial banks, offering a variety of financial products to individuals and businesses. It is the holding company of UniTeller, a leading US-based global payments company that enables transfers to 200,000 locations worldwide. In 2020, Banorte partnered with Volante to modernise its cross-border payments infrastructure.
BMO
Founded: 1817
CEO: Darryl White
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
BMO is the 8th largest bank by assets in North America, with more than 12 million customers worldwide. The company’s Global Money Transfer service allows people to transfer funds to up to 50 countries in multiple currencies. BMO serves many leading cross-border payment companies.
BNP Paribas
Founded: 2000 (Merger between BNP and Paribas)
CEO: Jean-Laurent Bonnafé
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Founded in 2000 after a merger of leading French bank BNP and international investment bank Paribas, the history of BNP Paribas stretches back into the early 19th century. The company now has 190,000 employees in 65 countries, including almost 145,000 in Europe. BNP is a leading provider of financial services to Europe-based cross-border payment companies.
BNY Mellon
Founded: 2007 (From merger of BNY and Mellon Financial Corporation)
CEO: Thomas P Gibbons
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
BNY Mellon was established through a merger of Mellon and the Bank of New York, which was founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1784. The company currently has more than $46tn assets under custody and/or administration and operates across 35 countries. BNY Mellon processes cross-border payments amounting to $1tn daily, working with more than 1,600 global banks and providing payments in the local currencies of over 160 countries. BNY is one of the critical cornerstones of the global banking cross-border payments infrastructure.
Citi
Founded: 1812 (as City Bank of New York)
CEO: Jane Fraser
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Based in New York City, Citi is a leading International bank serving more than 200 million customers across more than 160 countries. Last March, it announced it was releasing a single electronic digital documentation platform for cross-border payments. The company’s WorldLink solution is widely used across the sector and has enabled cross-border payments for over 30 years, allowing Citi to issue payments in more than 135 currencies.
Deutsche Bank
Founded: 1870
CEO: Christian Sewing
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Founded in the 19th century to support German’s foreign trade and exports, Deutsche Bank is a leading provider of financial services. In 2021, it had over 80,000 employees, assets over €1.3tn and reported a net profit of €2.5bn. The company’s cross-border XB-ACH platform supports cross-border payments across 120+ currencies. Deutsche Bank serves many of the larger cross-border payments companies globally.
DBS
Founded: 1968
CEO: Piyush Gupta
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
DBS is a leading financial services provider based in Singapore. It now operates across 18 markets with more than 33,000 employees representing over 40 nationalities. The business achieved a record net profit of SGD 6.80 billion (USD$49.7bn) in 2021. Last September, it became the first bank in India to launch real-time digital cross-border payments for its corporate and SME clients.
Goldman Sachs
Founded: 1869
CEO: David Solomon
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Headquartered in New York, Goldman Sachs provides financial services spanning investment banking, securities and asset management for individuals, businesses and organisations. In 2021 it secured net revenues of $59.34bn. In June of that year it announced it had formed a partnership with Visa that would allow Goldman Sachs customers to use Visa Inc’s networks to make cross-border payments and move money globally.
HSBC
Founded: 1865
CEO: Noel Quinn
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Based in London, HSBC is one of the biggest financial services organisations in the world, with approximately 40 million customers and a network spanning 64 countries and territories. Through its online money transfer service, it’s possible to send up to £50,000 to over 150 different destinations across 22 currencies.
Lloyds Bank
Founded: 1765
CEO: Charlie Nunn
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises
Thought to be one of the big four banks in England and Wales, Lloyds Bank has 26 million customers worldwide. Businesses and individuals can send international payments to over 100 countries using its Internet Banking service.
JPMorgan Chase
Founded: 2000 (merger between Chase Manhattan Corporation and JP Morgan and Co.)
CEO: Jamie Dimon
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
With a history dating back to the end of the 18th century, JPMorgan Chase is now the largest bank in the US and the fifth largest in the world. JPMorgan Chase provides FX and payment services to many other financial institutions and cross-border payment companies around the globe.
RBC
Founded: 1864
CEO: David McKay
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises
One of Canada’s largest banks, RBC leverages over 1,400 banking relationships worldwide to facilitate international money transfers. RBC also focused on having a US-based banking offering designed specifically for Canadians, providing them instant cross-border transfers and 50,000+ no-fee ATMs.
NatWest
Founded: 1968
CEO: Alison Rose
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Having taken in 200 businesses over the years, National Westminster Bank is now UK’s largest retail and commercial bank, serving 19 million people and around 1 in 4 businesses across the UK and Ireland. The bank does not charge a fee to send international payments using online banking or its mobile app.
PNC
Founded: 1983 (Merger between Pittsburgh National Corporation and Provident National Corporation)
CEO: William Demchak
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Tracing its history back to the Pittsburgh Trust and Savings Company in 1845, PNC Financial Services offers a wide range of financial services to businesses, organisations and individuals, supporting 12 million customers worldwide. As part of its acquisition of BBVA USA Bancshares in 2021, the company acquired BBVA Transfer Services – a cross-border payments innovator – which it rebranded as PNC Global Transfers. Also in 2021, PNC joined the CHIPS network, and was one of 11 banks to collaborate with SWIFT on its Immediate Cross-Border Payments initiative.
Santander
Founded: 1857
CEO: José Antonio Alvarez
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
In 1857, Banco Santander was incorporated to facilitate trade between the Port of Santander, Spain and Latin America. Over 160 years later in 2021, the company earned €46.4bn with underlying profit before tax of €15.3bn, while the total number of customers across the business increased to 153 million. Created in 2020, the company’s payments arm PagoNxt enables cross-border payments in 140 currencies and other financial services for businesses and consumers.
Standard Chartered
Founded: 1969
CEO: Bill Winters
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
With origins stretching back over 160 years, Standard Chartered is an international banking group with more than 86,000 employees across 59 countries. It is a British banking firm with headquarters in London, UK. Through its online international transfer services, customers can move funds for free to Standard Chartered accounts across more than 19 markets.
Sociéte Générale
Founded: 1865
CEO: Frédéric Oudéa
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises
Société Générale has been a leading European bank for more than 150 years. In 2021 it reported a +16.1% increase in underlying revenues vs 2020 and an underlying gross operating income of €8.5bn. The bank has been applying Swift gpi to institutional clients since 2017, and expanded it to nine new countries across Western Europe and Asia in 2019.
UBS
Founded: 1998 (Through merger of Union Bank of Switzerland (1862) and Swiss Bank Corporation)
CEO: Ralph Hamers
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
UBS is a Swiss multinational bank and financial services provider. It is the amalgamation of more than 370 financial services firms that have merged into the company since the founding of the original Union Bank of Switzerland in 1862. The UBS Pay Worldwide platform facilitates cross-border payments in more than 120 currencies (it claims this number is higher than any other Swiss bank).
Wells Fargo
Founded: 1852
CEO: Charles Scharf
Customer focus: Remittances, Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Wells Fargo is a US-based financial services business with headquarters in San Francisco, California. In Q4 2021, the company reported a net income of $5.8bn. In December, Wells Fargo announced that, alongside HSBC, it would use a blockchain-based solution to settle foreign exchange transactions. Wells Fargo has its own unique offering for remittances called Wells Fargo ExpressSend.
Private equity-backed
Strong global payments growth continues to drive investment in cross-border payments this year. We distinguish private equity-owned companies from those that have received venture or growth financing. Here are FXC Intelligence’s top cross-border payment picks backed by private equity investors in 2022.
Banking Circle
Founded: 2013
CEO: Anders la Cour and Laust Bertelsen
Customer focus: SMEs, Large Enterprises, Ecommerce
Headquartered in Luxembourg, Banking Circle offers a financial infrastructure that allows banks and payment businesses to provide their customers with international banking services (e.g. international payments). It facilitates cross-border payments in 25 currencies, and also has offices in the UK, Germany and Denmark.
Convera
Founded: 2009
CEO: Patrick Gauthier
Customer focus: B2B Payments, SMEs, Large Businesses, Fintechs, Financial Services
Formerly Western Union Business Solutions, Convera was formed in 2022 from a private equity buyout from parent Western Union. Convera provides cross-border payments services to over 30,000 customers across more than 200 countries and territories. It has over 60 global banking partners and claims to be the largest non-bank global B2B payments platform. Convera provides payment services as well as FX and hedging services.
Currencies Direct
Founded: 1996
CEO: Keith Hatton
Customer focus: Consumer, SME
With more than 20 branches across Europe, Currencies Direct has facilitated international money transfers for more than 325,000 people. In March 2022, the company received a £140m investment from Blackstone, after achieving £105m in revenues and £43m of EBITDA for the 12 months up to January 2022. Currencies Direct is one of the few players of scale left that serves the high-touch, higher end consumer money transfer segment. It owns a number of other brands including TorFX.
Global Reach
Founded: 2001
CEO: Nicholas Fullerton
Customer focus: Consumer, SMEs, Large Enterprises
Global Reach supports both corporate and personal money transfer payments, as well as providing risk management and strategic hedging solutions. It has helped over 32,000 people transfer funds abroad and now has over 200 employees. The private equity group Inflexion bought Global Reach and followed up with the purchase of high-end consumer group FC Exchange (since rebranded as Global Reach).
Lumon
Founded: 2000
CEO: Shamus Hodgson
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs
Lumon specialises in international money transfers. It is the rebrand of its previous group of companies which included consumer-focused player Foreign Currency Direct and SME-focused players Infinity International and Earthport FX.
MoneyCorp
Founded: 1962
CEO: Mark Horgan
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises
Moneycorp is an international payments company headquartered in London, UK, that has operations across Europe, the Americas, Australasia, Asia, Brazil and the Middle East. The company offers competitive rates from its pool of 18+ banking partners and enables transfers across 120 currencies. Over recent years, the company has shifted away from the high-end consumer and travel money segments to re-focus on the B2B payments world.
Small World
Founded: 2005
CEO: Khalid Fellahi
Customer focus: Remittances, Businesses
London-based Small World is a provider of international payment services for consumers and businesses across Europe, the Americas and West Africa. It has revenues over £150m, nearly 1,000 employees and transfers more than £5bn of customers’ money each year. It offers digital payments to over 100 countries.
Wizz Financial
Founded: 2018
CEO: Anton Pasiecnikov
Customer focus: Remittances, B2B Payments
A consortium of Switzerland-based Prism Group AG and UAE-based Royal Strategic Partners, Wizz Financial specialises in cross-border payments, micro-lending, digital wallets and B2B payment tech. In 2021, the consortium agreed to acquire a number of assets from payments company Finablr, including UAE Exchange, Unimoni and Xpress Money. At their peak, these groups served 25 million customers, including 1,500 corporate and institutional clients, in over 30 countries via its network of 100 correspondent banks.
Mobile
A number of the largest mobile-focused providers have made significant inroads into the remittances sector, allowing money to be quickly sent between banked and non-banked customers. Here are our top picks for mobile cross-border payments companies in 2022.
Airtel
Founded: 2017
CEO: Gopal Vittal
Customer focus: Remittances, Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises
Airtel Payments is part of Airtel, a leading telecommunications company based in India. The company has collaborated with leading money transfer operating companies (most notably Western Union) to enable real-time payments across millions of bank accounts in India and Africa.
IDT
Founded: 1990
CEO: Samuel Jonas
Customer focus: Consumers, Remittances, Mobile Top-Ups
Originally a telecommunications company, IDT Corporation is a global provider of communications and payment services. Through its BOSS Money app, it enables international remittances from the US to 40 destination countries, with over 325,000 payment points across Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia. Through BOSS Revolution, it allows mobile airtime top-ups, as well as international calling.
MPesa
Founded: 2020
CEO: Sitoyo Lopokoiyit
Customer focus: Remittances
Founded by Vodafone and Safaricom (a leading telecoms provider in Kenya) M-PESA is a mobile phone-based money transfer service. It enables cross-border payments for more than 51 million customers across seven countries in Africa with secure international transfers via their mobile phones. More than $314bn in transactions is sent annually with Kenya and Tanzania its two biggest markets.
Orange
Founded: 1988
CEO: Stéphane Richard
Customer focus: Remittances
Orange is a French international telecoms company with global headquarters in Paris, France. The company launched Orange Money, its platform for mobile-phone based money transfers, in 2008 to support easy mobile payments between non-banked people. It now serves 60 million customers in 17 countries. In 2020, Orange expanded its financial services offering with the launch of its own bank, Orange Bank Africa.
Crypto and DLT
Crypto remains a hot topic in the cross-border payments sphere, with some commentators claiming that distributed ledger technologies will make payments faster, easier and more secure. Here are our three picks for the biggest Crypto and DLT cross-border payments companies in 2022.
Circle
Founded: 2013
CEO: Jeremy Allaire
Customer focus: Businesses, Financial Services, Crypto-Native Companies
Headquartered in Boston, US, Circle is a global finance firm that helps businesses accept payments using digital currencies. It issues the USD COIN (USDC), a US dollar-backed digital currency that is supported on several blockchains, and which is currently used in MoneyGram’s trial of stablecoin-based remittances.
Ripple
Founded: 2012
CEO: Brad Garlinghouse
Customer focus: Businesses, Financial Services, Crypto-Native Companies
Ripple provides a blockchain-based digital payment network and issues the cryptocurrency XRP. The company is expanding quickly, with 500 employees across 9 global offices. Its products are used by customers across more than 55 countries.
Stellar
Founded: 2014
CEO: Denelle Dixon
Customer focus: Money Transfer Companies, SMEs, Large Enterprises
Stellar is a decentralised network for sending digital representations of money to accounts around the world. It is being developed by the Stellar Development Foundation (founded in 2014) with the aim of creating a stable financial network that exists outside global economies. In October 2021, MoneyGram announced it was partnering with the Stellar Development Foundation to enable international payments through its platform with Stellar and Circle’s USDC, before launching a pilot cash-in/cash-out programme in November.
Public companies (non-banks)
In this last segment, we’re discussing the biggest public companies – i.e. public companies that are listed on the stock exchange and are not privately owned.
Adyen
Founded: 2006
CEO: Pieter van der Does
Customer focus: Merchants
Adyen was founded to help create more efficient payment technologies and infrastructure, and provide shopping day insights to merchants. The company has more than 2,000 employees representing 100+ nationalities in 27 offices worldwide. The core focus for Adyen is processing payments in the biggest developed markets globally, in particular Europe and the North America.
Argentex
Founded: 2011
CEO: Harry Adam
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Corporates
Based in London, Argentex defines itself as a foreign exchange specialist with corporate and institutional clients across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australasia and the Americas. It claims to have traded more than $75bn in over 70 currencies for its clients.
Alpha
Founded: 2010
CEO: Morgan Tillbrook
Customer focus: Mid-Size and Large Corporates, Institutional
Alpha is a London-based payments and hedging company focused on mid-size and large corporates. It offers a range of banking solution products as part of its payments business. Alpha listed on the UK-based AIM stock market in April 2017.
Bill.com
Founded: 2006
CEO: René Lacerte
Customer focus: SMEs
Bill.com is a leading business payment network that aims to support faster and more efficient payments made by and to businesses. Its platform is used to manage and process payments between businesses and their suppliers. Bill.com offers cross-border payments as a key product offering in its accounts payable focused product.
dLocal
Founded: 2016
CEO: Sebastian Kanovich
Customer focus: Merchants, Fintechs
Based in Montevideo, Uruguay, dLocal provides a payment platform that facilitates cross-border payments and online transactions for merchants and their customers. The company has more than 300 employees at six offices around the world, and supports payment operations in Latin America, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa.
Ebix
Founded: 1976
CEO: Robin Raina
Customer focus: Consumers, Businesses (Insurance, Financial Services, Healthcare)
Ebix provides ecommerce, payments and insurance technology products to corporate clients and consumers. Through its EbixCash platform, Ebix enables international money transfers and remittances across India and worldwide. The company says it has 40+ offices across Brazil, Singapore, Australia, the US, UK, New Zealand, India and Canada.
EQ
Founded: 1929
CEO: Paul Lynam
Customer focus: SMEs, Large Businesses
Based in London, UK, EQPay provides a single online international payments platform that allows companies to make payments across 130 currencies to over 180 countries. It’s part of EQ (Equiniti), a global financial services company serving corporates and public organisations.
Equals Group
Founded: 2014
CEO: Ian Strafford-Taylor
Customer focus: Consumers, SMES, Large Enterprises
Equals Group is a UK-based provider of forex services, facilitating international payments for individuals and corporations through a range of payment solutions. It aims to be a leading challenger in the international money transfer space for SMEs. The company has grown in recent years both by acquisition and organically.
Euronet (Ria, XE)
Founded: 1994
CEO: Michael Brown
Customer focus: Remittances, Consumers, SMEs, Fintechs
Headquartered in Kansas City, US, Euronet provides financial services and products to more than 170 countries around the world. It has three divisions with the largest, money transfer, now accounting for nearly half of all revenues. It has acquired two major international money transfer companies, Ria and XE, which focus on remittances and consumer and SME payments respectively. Euronet has also started to offer its platform and payout network to other industry players.
FIS
Founded: 1968
CEO: Gary Norcross
Customer focus: SMEs, Large Enterprises, Merchants, Financial Services Companies
FIS is a global provider of Fintech solutions for corporates, merchants and banks. Last year it launched FIS RealNet – a cloud-based platform to allow businesses and consumers to make domestic and cross-border payments. While it has traditionally focused on enterprise clients, it is increasingly targeting SME customers, aided by its acquisition of embedded finance player Payrix in early 2022. FIS’ biggest acquisition came when it purchased Worldpay.
Fiserv
Founded: 1984
CEO: Frank Bisignano
Customer focus: SMEs, Large Enterprises, Merchants, Financial Services Companies
Fiserv delivers financial services, including banking global commerce and payments, to more than 100 countries and nearly 6 million merchant locations. Its services include two merchant platforms, Clover for SMEs and Carat for enterprises, as well as banking-as-a-service and embedded finance offerings. Fiserv nearly doubled in size when it acquired First Data in 2019.
Fleetcor
Founded: 2000
CEO: Ronald Clarke
Customer focus: SMEs, Corporates, Institutional, Fintechs, Financial Services
Based in Atlanta, Georgia, US, Fleetcor now supports billions of B2B transactions across more than 100 countries. Fleetcor expanded its focus from workforce payment products to cross-border payments in 2017 with its acquisition of Cambridge Global Payments. In 2021 it completed the acquisition of Afex and grouped its payments companies into the umbrella brand Corpay.
Flywire
Founded: 2009
CEO: Mike Massaro
Customer focus: B2B and Corporates in Education, Healthcare, Travel
Flywire provides software to facilitate international payments between clients and their customers across a number of sectors, including education and healthcare. The company saw a 53% year-on-year increase in revenues to $201m in 2021. Education is the founding pillar of Flywire and health, travel and most recently B2B have helped it grow recently. Flywire focuses on the accounts receivable side of payments.
Global Payments
Founded: 1967
CEO: Jeffrey Sloan
Customer focus: SMEs, Large Enterprises, Merchants, Financial Services Companies
Global Payments is a leading payment tech provider with offices in 38 countries and 24,000+ experts representing 80 nationalities. It mainly targets companies engaged in ecommerce. Global Payments jumped into the top tier of payment processors when it acquired TSYS in 2019.
Intermex
Founded: 1994
CEO: Robert Lisy
Customer focus: Remittances
Intermex enables international money transfers between the US and Latin America and the Caribbean. It offers services across 49 states to 17 Latin American countries, and is currently looking to expand into new corridors. The company remains focused on its retail cash business while other foreign exchange companies are turning to digital.
Mastercard
Founded: 1966
CEO: Michael Miebach
Customer focus: Consumers, Businesses
Mastercard is a US-based financial services and payments company that enables cross-border payments through Mastercard Cross-Border Services and owns the Mastercard card network. It allows payments across bank accounts, mobile wallets, cards and cash to more than 150 countries across 90 currencies with 280,000 cash payout locations. Mastercard and Visa control around 90% of credit and debit payments across the world, outside of China.
MoneyGram
Founded: 1980
CEO: Alex Holmes
Customer focus: Remittances
MoneyGram is one of the biggest money transfer companies in the world. It served around 47 million customers in 2021 across 200 countries and territories. Digital has been a big focus for the company as it aims to become 50% digital by 2024 and has also been very active in the crypto space, most recently partnering with Stellar and Coinme. MoneyGram has one of the largest cash payout networks globally. In February 2022, MoneyGram agreed to be taken private by private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners with the $1.8bn transaction expected to close in late 2022.
Monex
Founded: 1985
CEO: Héctor Pío Lagos Dondé
Customer focus: SMEs, Corporates, Institutional, Fintechs
Monex is a specialist in commercial foreign exchange services, providing payment solutions to more than 70,000 clients globally. The company facilitates the delivery of international payments through its Monex Pay platform. It has offices in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia.
OFX
Founded: 1998
CEO: Skander Malcolm
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Merchants, Fintechs
Founded in Australia, OFX enables international money transfers in more than 50 currencies. In business now for nearly 25 years, the company has transferred a total of £80bn and has 1 million customers worldwide. OFX has a global presence with the North American market providing some of its most significant growth in recent years. OFX is also expanding its offering in the enterprise segment.
PayPal
Founded: 1998
CEO: Dan Schulman
Customer focus: Remittances, Consumers, SMEs, Merchants
Headquartered in the US, PayPal provides an online money transfer platform for consumers and businesses worldwide. It owns and operates Xoom, an international money transfer service that enables cash transfers via bank deposit, cash for pickup and cash delivery to over 160 countries. At the start of 2021, PayPal became the first foreign operator to take full control of a payment firm in China by acquiring the remaining 30% of Chinese payment solution GoPay. PayPal has over 400 million customers globally.
Payoneer
Founded: 2005
CEO: Scott Galit
Customer focus: Freelancers, SMEs, Online Sellers, Corporates, Financial Services
Payoneer provides its payment solutions to 5 million customers and has 2,000 employees worldwide across 24 global offices. In 2021, the company’s FY revenues increased 37% year-on-year to $473m. Payoneer is currently expanding its services for small businesses with the rollout of Payoneer Checkout, and is also looking to expand its accounts-payable/accounts receivable offering.
Paysafe
Founded: 1996
CEO: Philip McHugh
Customer focus: Remittances, Consumers, B2B Payments
Founded in 1996, Paysafe is an international online payments company based in the UK. It supports domestic and international payments between consumers and businesses. Through Paysafe’s Skrill and NETELLER wallets, customers can action real-time payments at over 25,000 online merchants in more than 40 currencies. The company has over 3,000 employees spread across 12 locations worldwide.
Remitly
Founded: 2011
CEO: Matt Oppenheimer
Customer focus: Remittances
Remitly enables international money transfers to over 130 countries via its remittance service and mobile app. The company saw a 78% yoy revenue increase to $459m in 2021, and is continuing to build its global disbursement network, with a focus on remittances and helping immigrant communities. The company began a partnership with Visa in 2019 to enable Remitly customers to send cross-border payments to eligible Visa debit cards in real-time. Remitly has also been one of the most crypto-forward groups, partnering over the past year with Meta’s Novi and Coinbase.
StoneX
Founded: 1924
CEO: Sean O’Connor
Customer focus: Corporates, Fintechs, Financial Services, Non-Profits
Based primarily in the US but with offices around the world, StoneX is a financial services organisation providing foreign exchange and cross-border payment services to businesses and organisations. It serves more than 32,000 payments clients across 180 countries. StoneX specialises in more exotic currencies serving many financial institutions in the sector.
Tencent
Founded: 1998
CEO: Ma Huateng
Customer focus: Consumers, Businesses
Tencent is a major Chinese multinational tech and entertainment company and the owner of WeChat, China’s biggest messaging app. In December 2021, international payments platform Paysend launched a tech partnership with Tencent’s fintech division, which would allow people to receive money over Tencent’s WeChat service. Aside from Alipay, WeChat Pay is now the pre-eminent digital wallet for Chinese businesses and consumers, with 1.2 billion monthly active users.
Walmart
Founded: 1962
CEO: Doug McMillon
Customer focus: Consumer Retail, Remittances
Walmart, one of the world’s largest retailers has long been active in the remittances segment. It has partnered with MoneyGram, Ria and Western Union to facilitate transfers to 200 countries from nearly 4,700 stores across the US. In March 2022, the company relaunched its Mexican remittances programme to make it even cheaper to send money to Mexico from the US.
Wise
Founded: 2011
CEO: Kristo Käärmann
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Financial Services
Formerly known as TransferWise, Wise is a money transfer operator enabling easy and secure money transfers across 22 currencies. The company has raised a total of $1.3bn in funding over 13 rounds and became a public company in 2021. It has supported over 12 million customers in more than 170 countries.
Worldline
Founded: 1974
CEO: Gilles Grapinet
Customer focus: Merchants, Financial Services
Worldline is a French multinational payment company with more than 20,000 employees, operating in more than 50 countries. The business specialises in merchant and transactional service for processing in-store and online payments. Recently, Worldline has announced its intention to move into Japan through a partnership with local payment service provider Vesca.
Western Union
Founded: 1851
CEO: Devin McGranahan
Customer focus: Remittances
In 2006, US-based Western Union shifted its focus from communications to cross-border payments. The company now allows people to transfer money to over 200 countries and territories online, via an app or from one of 500,000 Western Union agent locations. In its FY 2021 report, the company reported digital money transfer revenue growth of 22% to more than $1bn.
Visa
Founded: 1958
CEO: Alfred Kelly Jr
Customer focus: Consumers, Businesses
Based in California, US, Visa is one of the biggest global payments companies in the world, allowing international money transfers across more than 200 countries and territories. The business has more than 21,000 employees in 123 locations worldwide. In 2021, it processed more than 160 billion transactions and saw net revenues of $24.1bn (an increase of 10% compared to 2020). Visa’s cross-border payments arm, Visa Direct, serves many fintechs and cross-border payment companies. In 2021 the company also acquired B2B-focused cross-border payments platform Currencycloud.
Previous editions of The Cross-Border Payments 100
FXC Intelligence has been releasing an edition of The Cross-Border Payments 100 for several years. Here you can find previous editions:
2021
2020
