The Top 100 Cross-Border Payment Companies
The world’s 100 top cross-border payment companies in 2024, according to FXC Intelligence.
The cross-border payments industry is already seeing plenty of activity in 2024. Countries are introducing and linking instant payment systems to reduce costs and increase the speed of cross-border payments in line with the G20’s roadmap for the sector. Alongside this, continued geopolitical turmoil in Ukraine and the Middle East is contributing to the world’s growing migrant population, as well as driving demand for dedollarisation and a need for more accessible remittances. Meanwhile, industry players are looking to cut costs and boost profits, with some consolidating to expand their footprint and capitalise on the fragmented B2B payments market. Many of them are also pursuing advancements in technology, particularly around generative AI and instant payments.
Amidst all the developments so far this year, 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 2024 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 sixth year, The Cross-Border Payments 100 profiles the 100 players that truly matter in the sector.
This year has seen a number of changes. Our ecommerce section, which we created last year, has grown to include Shein and Temu. Meanwhile, with industry focus currently moving away from cryptocurrencies, we’ve removed the crypto category this year. Several players who previously featured on our Most Promising Cross-Border Payments Companies have also been added, including SUNRATE, CAB Payments and Papaya Global, which alongside Deel is one of two new additions to the map focusing on global payroll services.
The impact of industry consolidation and spinouts is also reflected in our map for 2024. Payment processor Worldpay joins as a standalone company after being spun off from FIS, while DolFinTech, a new company formed from the merger of LatAm-focused remittances players DolEx and Barri, also appears for the first time. The other new additions – Mexican retail corporation Grupo Elektra and B2B processor TransNetwork – are also focused on US-LatAm corridors.
We’ve used the combined industry expertise of our team and our unique data to make this list the definitive guide to key players in the cross-border space. Scroll down to view The 2024 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 2024: Market Map
- The 2024 Cross-Border Payments 100 in detail
The Top 100 Cross-Border Payment Companies for 2024: 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, mobile payments players and beyond.
Here’s The 2024 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.
- 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.
To produce a definitive overall list, every company considered for inclusion is assessed against four areas: their significance as a company globally, their significance in their given market or segment, to what extent cross-border payments is a key part of their business and to what extent they are growing. The combined scores determined which companies made the final 100.Every player also met 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 2024 Cross-Border Payments 100 in detail
Key information about every company in FXC Intelligence’s 2024 cross-border payments top 100, divided by company type. Scroll down to view the full list, or click to jump to the relevant section:
- Ecommerce
- Banks
- Mobile
- VC-backed (growth stage)
- Public companies (non-banks)
- Independently owned
- Private equity-backed
Ecommerce
Cross-border payments remain vital for global brands, airlines and marketplaces, as well as smaller merchants looking to penetrate markets abroad. Here are our top picks for ecommerce cross-border payments companies in 2024.
Amazon
Founded: 1994
CEO: Andy Jassy
Customer focus: Consumers, Merchants, Ecommerce Businesses
Focus region: US, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 2
Starting out as an online marketplace for books, Amazon has since grown to become the world’s biggest ecommerce company, serving customers worldwide. As of mid-April, the US-based company has a market capitalisation of $1.93tn, making it one of the world’s most valuable companies. It contains Amazon Pay, an online payment service that allows customers to use their Amazon account to make payments on external merchant websites.
Amazon’s total sales revenue rose by 12% to $574.8bn in 2023, of which North America contributed $352.8bn (61%), international segment sales contributed $131.2bn (23%) and Amazon Web Services contributed $90.8bn (16%). International sales rose 11% YoY. The company has also partnered with Stripe to enable cross-border payments.
Ant Group
Founded: 2004
CEO: Eric Jing
Customer focus: Consumers, Small Businesses
Focus region: China, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Formerly known as Ant Financial and Alipay, Ant Group is a fintech and affiliate of Chinese multinational tech company Alibaba. Ant Group owns Alipay, China’s largest digital payments platform, which serves over 1.3 billion users (as of 2020). It also connects to international e-wallet platforms through cross-border digital payments solution Alipay+, which connects tens of millions of merchants worldwide.
The company was valued at $280bn before its IPO was halted in November 2020. As a result of a share buyback in July 2023, Ant Group was valued at $78.5bn. In March of this year, Ant Group underwent a major restructure, appointing former CFO Han Xinyi as its new president and also spinning out three of its businesses, including Ant International, OceanBase and Ant Digital Technologies, which will now operate independently. This was after the company reshaped its shareholding structure in January, which led to founder Jack Ma ceding control of the company. There has been speculation since last year that the company could be preparing to relaunch its IPO.
Booking.com
Founded: 1996
CEO: Glenn D. Fogel
Customer focus: Consumers, Travel Retailers
Focus region: Netherlands, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 2
Based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Booking.com has become one of the world’s largest travel agencies, allowing consumers to make bookings at hotels across 226 countries, with more than 28 million reported total accommodation listings across the site.
The company serves more than 100 million monthly active app users globally and facilitates guest payments across a variety of payment methods, including credit cards, debit cards and payment services such as PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Alipay. Booking.com has benefitted from the recent return to travel, with Booking Holdings – the holding company that operates Booking.com as well as several other travel search engines – reporting a 25% rise in revenues to $21.4bn for 2023.
In January, Mastercard announced that it was strengthening its collaboration with Booking.com to help it remove friction from travel payments and accelerate the usage of its Virtual Cards on the platform. Booking.com also partnered with Affirm to enable personalised buy now, pay later plans for customers at checkout in September 2023.
Expedia
Founded: 1996
CEO: Peter Kern (to be replaced by Ariane Gorin in May 2024)
Customer focus: Consumers, Travel Businesses
Focus region: US, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 2
Expedia.com is an online travel agency and metasearch engine that is part of Expedia Group – a Seattle-based owner of numerous online travel fare aggregators. Customers can use the company’s website or mobile app to book flights, hotels, cruise ship tours and other travel packages.
Expedia.com has over 47 million monthly unique visitors (as of 2020). In 2023, Expedia Group’s B2C revenues (which contains Expedia.com amongst other travel fare aggregators) rose 4% to $9.1bn, contributing to a 10% rise in group revenues to $12.8bn.
Last year, Expedia expanded its partnership with Mastercard to allow US clients to use credit card loyalty points to book travel, and introduced a discount on business travel for Airwallex customers.
Mercado Libre
Founded: 1999
CEO: Marcos Galperin
Customer focus: Consumers, Merchants
Focus region: LatAm
Years on Top 100 Map: 2
Mercado Libre is an ecommerce business that was founded in Argentina but is now based in Uruguay. The company provides ecommerce and payments services across 18 countries with a focus on LatAm markets, such as Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Peru. Serving more than 100 million users, Mercado Libre is formed of its commerce business, Mercado Libre, and its fintech arm Mercado Pago. The company amassed $14.5bn in revenue in 2023, with Mercado Pago seeing total payment volumes of $182.8bn.
In March this year, Mercado Libre announced its intention to double its investment in Mexico in 2024 to $2.5bn, with funds supporting its ecommerce and logistics business as well as expanding its credit offerings. This came after a deal with Citi to help drive expansion in Brazil and Mexico; a deal with Circle to introduce remittances using digital dollars (USDC); and a partnership with Western Union, allowing customers in the US and Canada to send money from Western Union’s mobile app to Mercado Pago wallets in Mexico.
Shein
Founded: 2008
CEO: Chris Xu
Customer focus: Consumers
Focus region: APAC
Years on Top 100 Map: 1
Chinese is a fashion retailer and major Chinese ecommerce player headquartered in Singapore. The company serves customers in more than 150 countries, with operational centres in the US, Brazil, Ireland and Southern China. Shein has partnered with a number of payments partners to boost its ecommerce operations worldwide, including Adyen, PayPal, Nuvei and Klarna.
Having captured a huge amount of fast fashion-related flows in the US, Shein has been expanding into new countries, including Australia, New Zealand and the UK, as well as the LatAm region more broadly. It filed for an IPO in the US in November 2023, and was most recently valued at $45bn in January 2024.
Temu
Founded: 2022
CEO: Lei Chen, Jiazhen Zhao (PDD Holdings)
Customer focus: Consumers
Focus region: US, Europe, Middle East, APAC
Years on Top 100 Map: 1
Founded in the US but owned and run by Chinese ecommerce giant PDD Holdings, Temu is an online marketplace offering discounted consumer goods. The company accepts a wide range of payment methods, spanning cards across Visa, Mastercard, Discover and more; wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay; PayPal; and buy now, pay later services.
Alongside Shein, Temu has continued to take wallet share from US-based consumers of fast fashion. PDD Holdings posted earnings of ¥248bn ($35bn) for 2023, more than doubling the figure in 2022, driven by merchant fees on Temu and other platforms.
Tencent
Founded: 1998
CEO: Ma Huateng
Customer focus: Consumers, Businesses
Focus region: China
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Tencent is a major Chinese multinational tech and entertainment company and the owner of Weixin, China’s biggest messaging app, as well as the international version of the app – WeChat. Aside from Alipay, Weixin’s payments solution Weixin Pay is now the pre-eminent digital wallet for Chinese businesses and consumers. The combined number of monthly active users for Weixin and WeChat was over 1.3 billion as of 30 June 2023.
In the past year, Tencent has taken steps to help internationalise its payment products. In July 2023, the company announced that WeChat users would now be able to link credit or debit cards issued by Visa, Mastercard, JCB or Discover, allowing international visitors to make payments across millions of merchants in China. That month, Flywire also partnered with Tencent to allow Chinese students to pay using Weixin Pay across educational institutions overseas. Tencent also partnered with Visa in November 2023 to enable Weixin users to receive inbound remittances to their digital wallets.
How is FXC Intelligence’s data helping the cross-border ecommerce industry?
Banks
The world’s top banks are continuing to expand upon their cross-border payment offerings in 2024. 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
Focus region: US
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
One of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, American Express (Amex) has grown to become one of the world’s largest providers of card payment services. The company’s total revenues net of interest expense rose by 14% to $60.5bn in 2023, backed by total billed business volumes (which spans transaction volumes across Amex’s payment products) of $1.5tn. Total revenues for international card services rose by 12% to $2.7bn.
In 2022, Amex launched American Express Global Pay, which allows businesses to send payments from their business bank account to suppliers across more than 40 countries. According to the company, more than 800 service providers have certified their payments products and services for use on the Amex network. American Express also partnered with UK-based payments company Ryft, while American Express Global Business Travel has agreed to acquire global business travel and meetings solutions provider CWT for $570m.
Bank of America
Founded: 1784
CEO: Brian Moynihan
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Focus region: US
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Bank of America (BofA) is one of the largest banks in both the US and the world. The bank in its current iteration was formed after BankAmerica was acquired by NationsBank for $62bn, nearly a century after the founding of its first iteration as the Bank of Italy in 1904 and more than two centuries after what is now the eastern portion of its business was chartered as Massachusetts Bank.
The business now serves approximately 69 million consumer and SME clients across 35 countries via approximately 3,800 retail financial centres. It also offers payment, FX and banking services to other banks and fintechs in the sector. In March 2024, BofA combined its apps for banking, investing and retirement into one single digital platform. In January 2024, it launched a new tool to analyse information passing through CashPro – its payments system, which facilitated 340 million payments in 2023 – including information on cross-border payment flows.
Banorte (UniTeller)
Founded: 1899
CEO: Jose Marcos Ramirez Miguel
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Focus region: Mexico
Years on Top 100 Map: 4
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. The bank is the holding company of UniTeller, a leading US-based global payments company that enables transfers to 200,000 locations across more than 105 countries worldwide. It also offers payment, FX and banking services to other banks and fintechs in the sector.
In 2021, UniTeller extended remittances to 13 APAC markets, including India, Bangladesh and Indonesia, through a partnership with cross-border payments provider Tranglo. In April 2023, UniTeller also acquired Oh My Card, a Central American gift card payment platform that the company intends to use to expand its cross-border payment channels. In February 2024, Banorte launched bineo, the first fully digital bank in Mexico according to the bank.
Barclays
Founded: 1690
CEO: C.S. Venkatakrishnan
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises
Focus region: UK
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Barclays is a British multinational bank with headquarters in London, UK. It operates in over 40 countries and employs approximately 85,000 staff. The bank is listed on the London and New York Stock Exchanges and in 2023 its revenue grew 2% to $31.6bn (£25.4bn), while total assets amounted to £1.5tn.
Barclays serves 48 million customers, and its international payments service allows money to be sent to over 200 countries worldwide across more than 50 different currencies. It also offers payment, FX and banking services to other banks in the sector, while the bank’s fintech unit serves many hundreds of cross-border payment companies across the globe. Last May, the bank partnered with B2B cross-border payments company TransferMate to bring a new international receivables solution to UK businesses.
BNP Paribas
Founded: 1848
CEO: Jean-Laurent Bonnafé
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Focus region: France
Years on Top 100 Map: 4
Established in 2000 by a merger of leading French bank BNP and international investment bank Paribas, the history of BNP Paribas stretches back into the early 19th century. Today, the bank has 190,000 employees in 65 countries, including almost 145,000 in Europe. In 2023, the bank’s revenues rose by 3% to €46.9bn. As of mid-April 2024, its market capitalisation was over $80bn. It offers cash management services among its cross-border payments capabilities, as well as providing payment, FX and banking services to other banks and fintechs in the sector.
In February, payment processor Worldline extended its partnership with BNP Paribas to deliver a range of services, spanning local and international debit cards, PoS, ecommerce, mobile and more. This follows a partnership with cross-border payments specialists PingPong Payments in 2022 to provide acquiring services.
BNY Mellon
Founded: 1784
CEO: Robin Vince
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Focus region: US
Years on Top 100 Map: 5
BNY Mellon was established in 2007 through a merger of Mellon Financial, which was founded in 1870, and the Bank of New York, which was founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1784. In 2023, the bank saw revenues rise 7% to $17.5bn, and at the end of that year had $47.8tn under custody and/or administration.
BNY Mellon’s FX Payments solution allows money to be sent to over 160 countries. It also offers payment, FX and banking services to other banks and fintechs in the sector. In October 2023, BNY Mellon launched Universal FX, an FX platform that allows investors to better manage their portfolios. In October 2022, the bank claimed it had facilitated a first-of-its-kind transparent payment transaction between Egypt and China.
CIBC
Founded: 1867
CEO: Victor G. Dodig
Customer focus: Consumers, Businesses
Focus region: Canada
Years on Top 100 Map: 3
Based in Toronto, Canada, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) is one of the country’s biggest providers of banking and financial services. It provides a variety of commercial and banking services to 14 million personal banking, public sector and institutional clients in Canada, the US and worldwide. It enables peer-to-peer remittances to 130 countries through its Global Money Transfer service. It also offers payment, FX and banking services to other banks and fintechs in the sector. In addition, CIBC runs online-only bank Simplii Financial, which offers a number of cross-border-related services, including international student banking and a USD savings account.
In January, CIBC partnered with VIsa to add its Visa Direct services, which will allow CIBC and Simplii clients to send money to digital wallets in a range of destinations such as the Philippines, China, Bangladesh and Kenya. Also in January, the bank invested in Rossum, an AI-powered transactional document automation platform.
Citi
Founded: 1812
CEO: Jane Fraser
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Focus region: US
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Based in New York City, Citi is a leading international bank serving more than 100 million customers across nearly 160 countries. The bank’s Treasury and Trade Solutions division serves global businesses with solutions that provide greater transparency into incoming payments, help them initiate payments securely and facilitate trade worldwide. As part of this, Citi’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. The bank also offers payment, FX and banking services to other banks and fintechs in the sector.
The bank released a report on cross-border payments last year, with CEO Jane Fraser saying that the Citi was partnering closely with banks, fintechs, corporates and industry experts to build “best-in-class” experiences for clients using AI and digital assets. In its FY 2023 results, the company saw revenues rise by 4% to $78.5bn. The bank also noted that cross-border transaction value had risen by 15% to $358m.
DBS
Founded: 1968
CEO: Piyush Gupta
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Focus region: Singapore
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
DBS is a leading financial services provider based in Singapore. It now operates across 19 markets, with more than 17 million customers and 40,000 employees. It also offers payment, FX and banking services to other banks and fintechs in the sector. The bank’s DBS Globesend solution for cross-border payments spans 132 currencies and 190 countries. DBS saw total revenues grow by 25% to $15bn in 2023.
In November 2023, UBS, SBI and DBS launched the world’s first repurchase transaction with a natively issued bond on a public blockchain. DBS is a participating bank in PayNow – the real-time payments service that allows Singapore users to send and receive money instantly, and which has recently been connected to Malaysia’s DuitNow and India’s Unified Payment Interface system to enable cross-border instant payments.
Deutsche Bank
Founded: 1870
CEO: Christian Sewing
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Focus region: Germany
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Deutsche Bank is a leading German bank that provides financial services for consumers and businesses. The bank’s total revenue in 2023 rose by 6% to €29bn. Through its FX4Cash platform, Deutsche Bank facilitates cross-border payments in more than 130 currencies, enabling vendor/supplier payments, royalty payments, international payroll and more. It also offers payment, FX and banking services to other banks and fintechs in the sector. Deutsche Bank serves many of the larger cross-border payments companies globally and also offers clients its own tracker for international payments.
In February 2024, Chinese B2B cross-border payments platform XTransfer partnered with Deutsche Bank to allow XTransfer to facilitate cross-border payments in Thailand. The bank also partnered with Standard Chartered to carry out the first digital currency transfer via the Universal Digital Payments Network in October 2023.
Goldman Sachs
Founded: 1869
CEO: David M. Solomon
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Focus region: US
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Headquartered in New York, Goldman Sachs provides financial services spanning investment banking, securities and asset management for individuals, businesses and organisations. Goldman Sachs overall has a headcount of 45,300 with offices in over 41 countries (as of the end of 2023).
It also offers payment, FX and banking services to other banks and fintechs in the sector. The bank’s domestic and global payments services – Transaction Banking – enables businesses to send payments using a single workflow across more than 120 currencies. Goldman Sachs saw revenues of $46bn in 2023. The company is a Visa B2B connect partner.
HSBC
Founded: 1865
CEO: Noel Paul Quinn
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Focus region: UK, Asia
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Based in London, HSBC is one of the biggest financial services organisations in the world, with approximately 42 million customers and a network spanning 62 countries and territories (according to its 2023 annual report). Through its Global Money Account product, it’s possible to send up to £50,000 per day to over 200 different destinations across more than 50 currencies, with instant payments available to other HSBC Global Money Transfers accounts. HSBC also offers payment, FX and banking services to other banks and fintechs in the sector.
HSBC’s revenue grew by 30% in 2023 to reach $66bn, with its Global Payments Solutions revenue rising by 78%. This was reportedly driven by higher margins reflecting higher interest rates and repricing. The company claims it processed around $500tn of payments electronically in 2023. In January 2024, the bank launched Zing, a new multicurrency money transfers product designed to rival Wise and Revolut.
JPMorgan Chase
Founded: 1799
CEO: Jamie Dimon
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Focus region: US
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
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. In 2023, the bank’s revenues rose by 23% to $158bn and its digital banking platform grew to nearly 67 million active customers. It also offers payment, FX and banking services to other banks and fintechs in the sector.
JPMorgan Chase saw average daily payment volumes of 56.6 million with an average daily value of $9.7tn. J.P. Morgan’s Cross-Currency Solutions enable customers to send money in more than 120 sending currencies and receive in more than 40 currencies across more than 200 countries and territories.
Lloyds Bank
Founded: 1765
CEO: Charlie Nunn
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises
Focus region: UK
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Considered one of the big four banks in England and Wales, Lloyds Bank has 27 million customers worldwide. Businesses and individuals can send international payments to over 100 countries using its Internet Banking service. It also offers payment, FX and banking services to other banks and fintechs in the sector. The bank has 66,000 employees, and in 2023 saw net income rise by 3% to £17.9bn ($13.4bn).
Lloyds enables payments to over 100 countries through its Internet Banking service, as well as offering SEPA Direct Debit services. In September 2023, the company announced a deal with Visa to power a new virtual card solution (Visa Commercial Pay) for UK-based businesses. In the same month it also partnered with Fiserv to widely offer wholesale FX rates to UK and Europe-based merchants on card transactions.
NatWest
Founded: 1968
CEO: Paul Thwaite
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Focus region: UK
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Officially established via a merger of National Provincial Bank and Westminster Bank in 1968, National Westminster Bank (NatWest) is now the UK’s largest retail and commercial bank, serving 19 million people. Its FXmicropay service, which is targeted at corporate and financial institutions, provides automated FX and cross-border payments and related services. Natwest achieved revenues of £14.8bn ($18.3bn), a 12% rise, in 2023.
RBC
Founded: 1864
CEO: Dave McKay
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises
Focus region: Canada
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
One of Canada’s largest banks, RBC has more than 97,000 employees serving 17 million customers across 29 countries. The bank has a US-based banking offering designed specifically for Canadians, providing them instant cross-border transfers and 50,000+ no-fee ATMs. It also offers payment, FX and banking services to other banks and fintechs in the sector. The bank saw revenues rise by 14.6% to C$56.1bn ($41.5bn) in 2023.
Alongside SWIFT and J.P. Morgan, RBC became the first Canadian bank to launch Swift Go in 2022, allowing businesses to send cross-border payments of up to $10,000. It has also launched a buy now, pay later solution for credit card holders with Visa; a solution for sustainable financing; and integrated banking solutions for incoming immigrants with ICICI bank.
Santander
Founded: 1857
CEO: Héctor Grisi Checa
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Focus region: Spain
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
In 1857, Banco Santander was incorporated to facilitate trade between the Port of Santander, Spain and Latin America. Today, it is the largest bank in Spain by assets and market capitalisation, providing services to 165 million customers. It also offers payment, FX and banking services to other banks and fintechs in the sector. Created in 2020, the company’s payments arm PagoNxt enables cross-border payments in 140 currencies and provides other financial services for businesses and consumers. Santander also owns a majority stake in Ebury, a cross-border payments, trade and FX facilitator for SMEs.
In 2022, Santander launched a sustainable PoS system; Ulity, a new technology platform for vehicle subscription-based solutions; helpS, a platform with everyday emergency solutions for individuals; and Zinia, a BNPL service enabling instant payments for companies from Europe to Brazil. In 2023, PagoNxt passed €1bn in revenue for the first time on the back of growing volumes across merchant acquiring and B2B trade. This contributed to an 11% rise in revenues to €58bn ($62bn) for the bank overall.
Societe Generale
Founded: 1864
CEO: Slawomir Krupa
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises
Focus region: France
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Société Générale has been a leading European bank for more than 150 years. In 2023, it reported revenues amounting to €25.1bn ($27.2bn), with growth in its international banking segment. 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. The bank has 126,000 employees and serves 25 million customers across 65 countries. It also offers payment, FX and banking services, including transaction-banking relation solutions, clearing and correspondent banking services.
Last year, Société Générale saw a new Group CEO, the appointment of a new global CIO and a new Group Country Head for the UK and Ireland, while this year the company added a new group Chief Data Officer. The bank has supported the development of startups in the global payments space since 2014 through its Payment & Transaction Banking Accelerator.
Standard Chartered
Founded: 1853
CEO: Bill Winters
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Focus region: UK, Asia, Africa, Middle East
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Standard Chartered is a British bank, formed under its current name in 1969 through a merger of Standard Bank Limited, dating back to 1862, and Chartered Bank, originally founded in 1853. With its headquarters in the UK, it is an international banking group with more than 85,000 employees and a presence in 52 markets.
Through its online international transfer services, customers can move funds for free to Standard Chartered accounts. The bank’s Hong Kong branch has an online overseas remittances service that facilitates remittances to over 200 destinations across more than 30 locations. The bank also offers payment, FX and banking services to other banks and fintechs in the sector. In May 2023, the bank partnered with global payments platform Tazapay to enable ecommerce merchants to accept payments from buyers in more than 70 markets.
UBS
Founded: 1862
CEO: Sergio P. Ermotti
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Focus region: Switzerland
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
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) and the bank operates in 50 countries worldwide. It also offers payment, FX and banking services to other banks and fintechs in the sector. UBS’s revenue rose 18% to $40.8m in 2023.
UBS recently bought its main rival, and the second-largest bank in Switzerland, Credit Suisse, for $3.3bn after that bank collapsed in March 2023. In 2022, UBS introduced the world’s first digital bond that is publicly traded and settled on both blockchain-based and traditional exchanges, and saw a number of key personnel changes. The bank welcomed Sergio Ermotti back as CEO in April 2023; he previously led the bank from 2011-2020.
Wells Fargo
Founded: 1852
CEO: Charles W. Scharf
Customer focus: Remittances, Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs, Financial Services
Focus region: US
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Wells Fargo is a US-based financial services business with headquarters in San Francisco, California. With locations covering more than 20 countries, Wells Fargo currently serves more than 70 million customers across a range of financial services, including personal and commercial banking, investing and wealth management, payment, FX and banking services. Last year, the bank’s revenue rose by 11% to $82.6bn.
Wells Fargo is one of several banks and payment partners that is participating in the Bank for International Settlements’ cross-border payment interoperability and extension (PIE) taskforce. In its annual report for 2023, the bank highlights it will modernise its global payments capabilities to prepare for potential changes in the market.
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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 unbanked customers. Here are our top picks for mobile cross-border payments companies in 2024.
Airtel
Founded: 1995
CEO: Gopal Vittal
Customer focus: Remittances, Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises
Focus region: India
Years on Top 100 Map: 4
Airtel Payments is part of Airtel, a leading telecommunications company based in India that offers wireless connectivity, prepaid and postpaid mobile and broadband services to consumers and businesses. Overall, the company serves 500 million customers across 17 countries. It 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. Airtel’s consolidated revenues rose by 19% to ₹1.4tn ($16.9bn) in 2023.
Airtel is currently working with Meta on a global connectivity project and has also partnered with Google, which is set to invest up to $1bn in a project to enhance digital inclusion in India. In 2023, Airtel’s African division launched a remittance transfer service with Mastercard, enabling Airtel customers in 14 African countries to send to and receive money from over 145 markets worldwide. Other projects include launching a new credit card with Axis Bank and creating India’s first 5G-enabled auto manufacturing unit with Tech Mahindra.
IDT
Founded: 1990
CEO: Samuel Jonas
Customer focus: Consumers, Remittances, Mobile Top-Ups
Focus region: Israel, US, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 4
Originally a telecommunications company, IDT Corporation is a global provider of communications and payment services. The company owns National Retail Solutions (NRS), a provider of PoS and payment processing services for retailers. IDT’s BOSS Money remittances service enables remittances to 47 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Europe and Asia. BOSS Revolution allows mobile airtime top-ups to over 230 carriers across 93 countries, as well as international calling.
In 2022, NRS partnered with OnPoint to expand its services for independent retailers and also launched a new B2B marketplace to connect wholesalers with suppliers. In 2023, IDT Corporation announced it had acquired prepaid-as-a-service platform Zendit. IDT’s fintech segment contributed $86.6m to total revenues of $1.2bn in 2023.
M-PESA
Founded: 2007
CEO: Sitoyo Lopokoiyit
Customer focus: Remittances
Focus region: Africa
Years on Top 100 Map: 4
Founded by Vodafone and Safaricom (a leading telecoms provider in Kenya), M-PESA is a mobile phone-based international money transfer service. It serves more than 51 million customers across seven African countries, with 604,000 agents across the continent. According to Vodafone, M-PESA processes more than $314bn in transactions per year.
Alongside Visa and Safaricom, M-PESA launched a virtual card in 2022, allowing 30 million of M-PESA’s users to make cashless payments at Visa-enabled merchants. It has also partnered with remittance company NALA to extend money transfers to Africans in more European countries, and recently moved its operations into a cloud operations centre in Kenya. In 2023, M-PESA announced strategic partnerships with Amazon and TerraPay to facilitate global remittances.
MTN Mobile
Founded: 1994
CEO: Ralph Mupita
Customer focus: Consumers, Businesses
Focus region: South Africa
Years on Top 100 Map: 2
MTN Mobile is a mobile money solution that facilitates payments across various countries in Africa, including international money transfers, mobile phone top-up, purchases or bill payments. It is part of MTN Group, a mobile telecoms company in Africa that has 295 million customers across 19 markets. The group’s fintech revenue grew by 21.4% to R21bn in 2023, which contributed to a 6.8% rise to R221bn ($12bn).
MTN Group Fintech partnered with Mastercard to launch a prepaid virtual card for the company’s MoMo ewallet, which enables over 900 million transactions monthly across 16 African countries with more than 50 million users. Through the deal, virtual and physical Mastercards will be added to every MoMo wallet, giving users access to over 100 million acceptance locations globally.
Orange Money
Founded: 2008
SVP, Mobile Financial Services and Fintech, Middle East and Africa: Aminata Kane Ndiaye
Customer focus: Remittances
Focus region: Côte d’Ivoire, Africa
Years on Top 100 Map: 4
Orange Money is a platform for mobile-phone based money transfers owned by Orange, a French international telecoms company. Since launching in Côte d’Ivoire, the service has amassed 90 million customers in 17 countries. In 2020, Orange expanded its financial services offering with the launch of its own bank, Orange Bank Africa.
In October 2022, Orange announced it had been conducting user relationship analysis to highlight how customers are using the service in order to identify potential improvements. In January 2024, Orange Finances Money Mali announced a partnership with TerraPay to enable remittances for 12 million Malians.
VC-backed (growth stage)
Despite the recent downturn, there are still many leading payment companies with venture capital backing. 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
Focus region: APAC
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Airwallex was founded in Melbourne, Australia, and has since grown to over 1,200 people in 19 offices worldwide. The company has raised over $900m (as of April 2024) and is one of the payment sector’s unicorns. It initially focused on the marketplace sellers’ market, offering payouts to sellers primarily based in China, but its product set has since expanded to cover small and medium-sized enterprises and card-based products. Airwallex’s payment network allows businesses to get paid, manage funds and payout more efficiently across over 150 countries and more than 60 currencies.
Airwallex is expanding its focus in the APAC region, having recently secured an online payment licence in China after acquiring Guangzhou Shang Wu Tong Network Technology. In 2022, it also signed a deal with ecommerce provider Shopify to enable more payment methods for merchants on the platform. In February 2024, it became an official partner of McLaren’s F1 team (one of many cross-border payments sponsorships in F1 recently). In December 2023, the company launched a partnership with ecommerce platform Woo, allowing 3.5 million stores on the platform to accept cross-border payments.
Checkout.com
Founded: 2009
CEO: Guillaume Pousaz
Customer focus: Merchants, Fintechs
Focus region: Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 5
Launched as a cloud-based payment platform in Singapore, Checkout.com has grown to over 1,900 employees in 21 global offices, with a headquarters in the UK. It 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 160 currencies.
Checkout.com reduced its valuation from $40bn to $11bn in December 2022 as a result of a wider downturn in investment and Sifted reported in June of last year that it had reduced its internal valuation by a further 15%. However, the company has continued to scale its operations in some areas, adding new offices in the US and expanding into Israel. Additionally, it has launched virtual and physical card issuing, allowing its clients to create payment cards for their customers. In February 2024, the company partnered with Visa and investment platform Stake to launch a cross-border account funding solution to enable real estate investments in the UAE.
Deel
Founded: 2019
CEO: Alex Bouaziz
Customer focus: Large Enterprises, SMEs
Focus region: US, EMEA, Africa
Years on Top 100 Map: 1
Deel is a provider of global payroll and compliance services that serves businesses hiring international employees and contractors. The company says it has onboarded 500,000 workers globally and processed $10bn in global payroll for more than 25,000 businesses worldwide. The company serves 150 countries with its global HR platform. In total the company has raised $679m, and it was valued in January 2023 at $12bn.
Deel has partnered with numerous providers in the cross-border payments space, including Brex, Paysend and Wise. In 2022, the company partnered with the UAE government to attract talent in the region and launched instant card transfer services in the Ukraine. In 2024, it acquired Munich-based AI business Zavvy as well as Africa-based payroll and HR company PaySpace. The company said in March 2024 that it had surpassed $500m in annual recurring revenue.
Ebanx
Founded: 2012
CEO: João Del Valle
Customer focus: SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs
Focus region: LatAm
Years on Top 100 Map: 5
EBANX is a leading payment solutions company based in Brazil offering pay-in/payout services, fraud and risk management and B2B payments services. The company’s cross-border payments platform is used by more than 1,000 merchants to directly integrate with payment partners, as well as accept more than 100 payment methods. Ebanx’s services enable more than 100 million customers to make purchases on international websites. It has operations in 15 LatAm markets and three African countries.
The company has raised $460m in funding over three rounds, with the most recent being a Series B funding round in June 2021. In December 2023, Ebanx integrated Botón Bancolombia (a payment method offered by Colombia’s Bancolombia) into its payment methods, providing a cross-border payment method for more than 10 million active digital users of this payment method. The company has also recently expanded operations in Africa and Latin America to connect global companies to nearly one billion digital consumers.
Flutterwave
Founded: 2016
CEO: Olugbenga Agboola
Customer focus: SMEs, Large Enterprises, Fintechs
Focus region: Africa
Years on Top 100 Map: 4
Flutterwave is a Nigerian fintech providing payment infrastructure for global merchants and payment service providers in Africa. Businesses can collect payments and process payouts globally across more than 30 currencies with Flutterwave’s API. As of December 2023, Flutterwave has processed over 550 million transactions and more than $32bn in volume.
In February 2022, Flutterwave saw its valuation grow to $3bn following a $250m Series D funding round, making it Africa’s highest-valued startup. The company recently partnered with Microsoft to build its next-gen platform on Microsoft Azure. Flutterwave’s CEO said in an address on the company’s website that it will plan to focus on servicing the enterprise segment more in 2024, as well as grow its number of licences in the US.
Inpay
Founded: 2008
CEO: Thomas Jul
Customer focus: Large Enterprises, NGOs, Financial Services, iGaming
Focus region: Europe
Years on Top 100 Map: 1
Inpay provides a global cross-border payments network for financial services, iGaming, corporate clients and NGOs. It enables global 24/7 payout services across more than 70 countries and more than 70 currencies across SEPA Instant, SEPA, Swift and cash remittances networks. The company spans 200 employees across three global offices. For its FY 2023 results, the company announced revenues had risen by 23% to €60.1m ($64.5m).
Inpay has been expanding in the Middle East, and aims to expand to an additional 60 countries over the course of 2024, including the Middle East, APAC, LatAm and North America. In March, Inpay announced that it had partnered with Tranglo to provide it with instant SEPA payments across 12 European countries (eventually adding a further 24).
LianLian Global
Founded: 2003
Chairman: Xiaosong Zhu
Customer focus: Ecommerce, Marketplace Merchants
Focus region: China
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
LianLian Global is an independent cross-border payments fintech based in China that focuses on ecommerce and marketplace payouts. It serves over 3.2 million cross-border ecommerce and marketplace sellers, spanning more than 100 countries and territories. It has also partnered with major banks including Citi, Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan to power its solutions, which are used by ecommerce companies such as Amazon, Shopify and Walmart.
In 2022, LianLian Global announced it was offering the world’s first cross-border payments guarantee to China, mitigating risk around payments to China-based suppliers made via its digital app. It also expanded its presence in 2022 through ecommerce partnerships with iwoca, RITMO and YouLend. In 2024, the company is planning to deepen its collaboration with local banks and financial institutions to create more advanced solutions for the market.
Nium
Founded: 2014
CEO: Prajit Nanu
Customer focus: Remittances, Fintechs, Ecommerce, Financial Services
Focus region: APAC, Europe, US
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Based in Singapore, Nium offers cross-border pay-in and pay-out services to a full range of corporates, fintechs and financial service companies. The company facilitates pay-ins across more than 35 markets, real-time payments across 100 markets and payouts across 190 markets. Nium serves over 130 million customers and supports platforms providing financial services to more than three billion people.
Nium has raised a total of $288m in funding to date, and was valued at $2.1bn in its last funding round in 2022. In 2022, the company also opened new offices in India, expanded its money transfer business to Malaysia and acquired payment acceptance software provider SoCash. Nium has formed a number of partnerships recently, including with Ebury to power cross-border payments in Brazil and with Australian spend management platform Weel and Visa to help accelerate the former’s global growth.
Onafriq
Founded: 2009
CEO: Dare Okoudjou
Customer focus: Merchants, SMEs, Financial Services
Focus region: Africa
Years on Top 100 Map: 3
Onafriq (formerly MFS Africa) is a pan-African company operating the largest digital payments gateway on the continent. It connects more than 500 million mobile money wallets across 40 African countries and 1,300 corridors.
Onafriq has raised around $220m in funding, with its latest round being a $200m Series C in June 2022. The company has partnered with Western Union to extend services across millions of mobile wallets in Africa from over 200 countries and territories. In January, Onafriq partnered with embedded finance platform provider Alviere to enable remittances from the US to African countries.
Papaya Global
Founded: 2016
CEO: Eynat Guez
Customer focus: Large Enterprises, Mid-Market Companies, Startups, HR Teams
Focus region: US, Middle East, Europe, APAC
Years on Top 100 Map: 1
Papaya Global offers global payroll management services for large businesses, including SentinelOne, Wix, Toyota and Microsoft. The company enables pay-ins in 14 currencies and payouts in more than 160 countries in local currencies. Its payment solutions are powered by J.P. Morgan and Citibank.
In 2022, Papaya Global bought Azimo, a London-based remittance provider, as part of a strategy to expand partnerships with B2B payment providers and remittance companies and build out its network. In April, it partnered with payment processor dLocal to expand Papaya’s presence in the LatAm region.
Paysend
Founded: 2017
CEO: Ronald Millar
Customer focus: Remittances, B2B
Focus region: Europe, Americas, APAC
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Paysend is an international money transfer service serving over seven million consumer customers. The company leverages card networks to enable P2P money transfers, as well as instant and global payout services for businesses spanning more than 30 currencies and 180 countries.
Paysend has raised a total of $337.6m in funding, with its latest funding round being led by Mastercard in December 2023. In April 2023, Paysend expanded its bank account transfer capabilities to the LatAm region. In September 2023 it announced a partnership with Mastercard to expand its offering for SMEs. This month, it announced an agreement with Currencycloud, giving its customers access to multicurrency wallets and helping the company expand its network across the US as well as the EMEA and APAC regions.
PingPong
Founded: 2015
CEO: Yu Chen
Customer focus: Merchants, SMEs
Focus region: Asia, Europe, US
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
PingPong helps more than one million online merchants save money across cross-border payments, VAT payments, supplier payments and more. As of November 2023 PingPong has accommodated business flows from more than 200 countries and regions, processed over $100bn in transaction volume and connected over 100 ecommerce businesses.
PingPong achieved unicorn status in 2020, and has received a total of $122m in funding. In 2022, Bloomberg reported that the company was considering an IPO to raise as much as $1bn in Hong Kong. In November 2022, PingPong expanded its services to Singapore to strengthen its presence in Southeast Asia, having established 20 offices worldwide. PingPong partnered with fintech MODIFI to release a global B2B BNPL platform in November 2023.
Rapyd
Founded: 2016
CEO: Arik Shtilman
Customer focus: SMEs, Ecommerce, Fintechs
Focus region: Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 5
Founded in Israel and based in the UK, Rapyd facilitates cross-border payments for businesses through a single platform spanning several financial services, including payment acceptance, disbursement and digital wallets. The company helps businesses accept payments from 100+ countries, as well as across more than 900 locally preferred payment methods, and send from more than 190 countries. It also assisted providers with issuing cards in more than 30 countries.
In March 2022, Rapyd achieved a valuation of $15bn, making it Israel’s highest-valued unicorn. In August 2023, payment processor PayU opted to sell its global payment organisation to Rapyd for $610m. The deal was expected to help the company scale and market its presence in Europe and LatAm.
Revolut
Founded: 2015
CEO: Nikolay Storonsky
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs
Focus region: Europe
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Revolut is a neobank and financial services company based in the UK. The company serves more than 40 million personal users and 500,000 business users across more than 150 countries and 36 in-app currencies. As of December 2023, Revolut customers were making more than 500 million transactions a month collectively.
To date, Revolut has raised $1.8bn in funding, including an $800m Series E round in 2021, when the company was valued at $33bn (this valuation has since been questioned by some investors). At the end of 2023, the company published its financial results for 2022, in which it said that revenues had risen by 45% to $1.1bn.
Stripe
Founded: 2010
CEO: Patrick Collison
Customer focus: Businesses, Merchants
Focus region: US, Europe
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Stripe is a payment processor supporting 135+ currencies and businesses in more than 40 countries. Stripe receives more than 250 million API requests per day, peaking at 13,000 requests per second. Overall, businesses processed a collective $1tn on Stripe in 2023, with more than 100 companies now processing $1bn in payments through the company every year.
Stripe has raised a total of $9.4bn in funding, and was recently valued at $65bn as part of an employee stock-sale deal. In 2023 and 2024 the company signed a number of high-profile partnerships, including with OpenAI to incorporate its ChatGPT technology into its products and services, and Amazon to power payments for its Just Walk Out technology in Australia and Canada.
SUNRATE
Founded: 2016
CEO: Paul Meng
Customer focus: B2B, Large Corporates, SMEs, Ecommerce
Focus region: Asia
Years on Top 100 Map: 1
SUNRATE provides a global payment and treasury management platform that facilitates cross-border B2B payments for businesses across more than 190 countries, spanning more than 130 currencies for global payments and over 30 for global collection. The company has partnered with a number of leading banks worldwide, including Citi, Barclays, BBVA, Standard Chartered and more.
SUNRATE recently added Apple Pay as a payment method for B2B transactions. For its FY 2023 results, the company posted revenue close to $100m.
TerraPay
Founded: 2014
CEO: Ambar Sur
Customer focus: Remittances, Businesses, Merchants
Focus region: Europe, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 2
Founded in the Netherlands and now based in the UK, TerraPay is a payments infrastructure company that enables cross-border payments for businesses. The company’s payments systems connect more than 2.1 billion mobile wallets and 7.5 billion bank accounts worldwide, and it facilitates money movement from more than 210 send countries to more than 140 receive countries.
In April 2023, TerraPay raised $100m in a Series B funding round, which it aimed to use to aid its expansion in the MENA and LatAm regions. In April 2024, the company received an MPI licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore to aid its APAC expansion. It has also partnered with other cross-border players in the Middle East, including remittances provider Al Fardan Exchange and payments provider Magnati, to boost money transfers in the region. In February, we broke the news that former Global Head of Visa Direct Ruben Salazar had joined TerraPay as its new President.
Thunes
Founded: 2016
CEO: Floris de Kort
Customer focus: Fintechs, Financial Services, Money Transfer Operators
Focus region: APAC, Europe, LatAm
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Thunes is a Singapore-based payments network aggregator that is developing a cross-border payment network for financial services companies, merchants and money transfer operators. It currently enables payments to more than 130 countries and accepts payments across 90 collection countries via more than 250 payment methods, spanning 85 currencies.
Thunes has raised $202m in funding, with a Series C funding round in July 2023 contributing $72m. In January 2022, Thunes announced a new partnership with the World Economic Forum to address systemic inequality in accessing financial services. The company announced the arrival of a new CEO in January 2024. In March, the company announced an expanded partnership with Visa that will allow the latter to send payments to digital wallets and bank accounts in Africa and Asia.
Tipalti
Founded: 2010
CEO: Chen Amit
Customer focus: Mid-Size and Large Enterprises
Focus region: US, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
US-based Tipalti facilitates global payments and the accounts payable process for businesses across a wide variety of specialties. In 2023, the company grew its customer base to more than 4,000 and transacted $60bn in payments volume annual run rate. Its clients include Amazon Twitch, GoDaddy, Roku, WordPress.com and ZipRecruiter.
To date, Tipalti has raised a total of $715m in funding, including a $270m Series F funding round that valued the company at $8.3bn in 2021. In 2022, the company launched a new integration with Amazon Business to streamline employee purchases on the platform. In September 2023, the company launched a finance automation platform for the European market.
TransferMate
Founded: 2010
CEO: Sinead Fitzmaurice
Customer focus: B2B Payments, Education, Financial Services
Focus region: US, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
TransferMate facilitates international payments and receivables transactions for brands around the world. Based in Kilkenny, Ireland, the company has offices in 15 countries. It enables cross-border payments through its global payments infrastructure, which supports 201 countries, 92 licences and 141 currencies. TransferMate has focused on building its account and regulatory base in all the core countries it operates in. We spoke to the company to find out more about some of the biggest B2B cross-border payments trends in 2024.
In 2023, the company launched TransferMate Connect, an integrated payments solution to support product development for banks and fintechs. The company has signed a number of high-profile partnerships, including with Wells Fargo to deliver global payments capabilities, as well as with Lightnet and XTransfer to boost its presence in APAC. Overall, the company has raised $129.7m in funding, including a $70m round in 2022 when it was valued at $1bn.
Veem
Founded: 2014
CEO: Marwan Forzley
Customer focus: B2B Payments, SMEs
Focus region: US
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Founded in 2014 as Align Commerce (changing its name in March 2017), US-based Veem supports domestic or international money transfers to over 100 countries across 70 currencies. The company helps businesses of all sizes streamline their payment process and build relationships with suppliers around the world. In total, the company has more than 800,000 users and has processed more than $10bn.
Veem has raised just under $100m in funding, with its latest raise being in 2020. In 2022, the company partnered with UK-based financial services firm Finastra to provide its accounts payable and accounts receivable services for SMBs to Finastra’s platform. In September 2023, the company launched virtual cards for SMBs in the US.
Zepz
Founded: 2010
CEO: Mark Lenhard
Customer focus: Remittances
Focus region: UK, Africa, Asia
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Formerly WorldRemit Group, UK-based Zepz supports digital cross-border payments. 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 for more than 400,000 customers.
In July 2022, Zepz reportedly benched plans for an IPO in order to focus on profitability. In total, Zepz has raised a total of $699.7m in funding, and was last valued at $5bn in 2021. In 2023, Sendwave launched a new banking product targeting Kenyans in the US.
Public companies (non-banks)
In this section, we’re discussing the biggest public companies – i.e. payments companies that are listed on a stock exchange and are not privately owned. Here are our top picks for public payment companies in 2024.
Adyen
Founded: 2006
CEO: Pieter van der Does, Ingo Uytdehaage (Co-CEOs)
Customer focus: Merchants
Focus region: Europe, US
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Adyen was founded to help create more efficient payment technologies and infrastructure, and provide shopping day insights to merchants. The company has more than 4,000 employees in 27 offices worldwide, and has served clients including Uber, Adobe, Ebay and Microsoft. The core focus for Adyen is processing payments in the biggest developed markets globally, in particular Europe and North America though its APAC business has been growing.
In the company’s recent full year results, it reported it had processed a total of €970.1bn in 2023, with revenues amounting to €1.6bn ($1.9bn). The company has concluded a two-year investment period that saw it scaling its global team, as well as reaping the benefits of further focus on North America that saw it become Adyen’s fastest-growing region for the second half of the year. In 2023, it gained UK banking authorisation.
Al Ansari Exchange
Founded: 1966
CEO: Rashed Al Ansari
Customer focus: Consumer money transfers/Remittances, SMEs
Focus region: Middle East
Years on Top 100 Map: 3
Al Ansari Exchange is an established provider of foreign exchange, remittance, bill payment and corporate services. With more than 250 branches across the UAE, the company serves around three million customers each month.
In April of last year, Al Ansari took the company public through an IPO that valued it at about $2bn – part of its strategy to grow its consumer remittances and B2B offerings, as well as expand to new markets in the Gulf. Also in 2023, the company received regulatory in principle approval to launch a digital wallet for its Digital Pay subsidiary and partnered with Tranglo to optimise cross-border remittances.
Alpha Group
Founded: 2009
CEO: Morgan Tillbrook
Customer focus: Mid-Size and Large Corporates, Institutional
Focus region: UK, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Alpha Group (previously Alpha FX) 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, and serves over 1,000 customers across more than 50 countries.
In 2023, Alpha’s revenues rose to £110m ($140m) on the back of its FX Risk Management business and an increase in Alternative Banking clients. It also launched offices in Madrid and Munich; opened a second headquarters in London focused on its Institutional business; and acquired multibank connectivity platform Cobase.
Apple
Founded: 1976
CEO: Tim Cook
Customer focus: Consumers, Businesses
Focus region: Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 1
The largest company in the world by market cap (as of March 2024), Apple is a multinational provider of consumer electronics, software and online services. In total, the company recorded net sales of $383bn in 2023. The company launched its mobile payment service Apple Pay in 2014.
Payments on Apple Pay are supported by merchants in over 80 countries worldwide across North America, the Middle East, LatAm and the Caribbean, Europe, APAC and Africa.
CAB Payments
Founded: 1833
CEO: Neeraj Kapur
Customer focus: B2B, Global Businesses, Financial Institutions, Development Organisations
Focus region: Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 1
CAB Payments is a B2B-focused payments provider and the holding company for Crown Agents Bank, which facilitates payment processing and FX services across more than 100 currencies and markets. The company’s revenues rose by 25% to £137.1m ($170m) in 2023. It has built a global payments networks spanning 135 geographically diverse local bank accounts.
This April, CAB Payments was granted a European payment service provider licence to help it expand into the European Economic Area, following the formation of a new European division. Recently the company named former Vanquis Banking Group CFO Neeraj Kapur as its new CEO.
Corpay Cross-Border Solutions
Founded: 1992
Group President: Mark Frey
Customer focus: SMEs, Corporates, Institutional, Fintechs, Financial Services
Focus region: North America, Latin America, Europe and Australasia
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
US-based Corpay Cross-Border Solutions allows businesses to track, manage and automate global B2B payments across several cross-border and card-based solutions. Earlier this year, Corpay’s Cross-Border Solutions parent company FLEETCOR rebranded to take on the name of its corporate payments division, then known just as Corpay. With regards to that division, the company says it facilitates more than 4.1 million payments annually across over 200 countries and more than 21,000 customers.
The Corpay Cross-Border Solutions division saw revenues grow by 27% to $981m in 2022, according to its results. The company was originally formed through a merger of Cambridge Global Payments and AFEX, two companies acquired by FLEETCOR. The division sold to over 100,000 new B2B clients in 2023 and also broadened its mid-market offering, with the launch of platform solution Corpay Complete.
dLocal
Founded: 2016
CEO: Pedro Arnt
Customer focus: Merchants, Fintechs
Focus region: LatAm, APAC, Middle East, Africa
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Uruguay-based dLocal provides a payment platform that facilitates cross-border payments and online transactions for merchants and their customers. The company has more than 1,000 employees and supports payment operations for merchants across 42 countries and over 900 payment methods.
dLocal says it processed $17.7bn and saw revenues increase 55% to $650m in its FY 2023 results. The company has numerous big-name partnerships, including Microsoft, Google and Shopify. This March, it was announced that then Co-CEO Pedro Arnt would be stepping into the role of CEO and Sebastián Kanovich, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, would be transitioning to become a Board Member and Head of Commercial and M&A Committee.
Equals Group
Founded: 2007
CEO: Ian Strafford-Taylor
Customer focus: Consumers, SMES, Large Enterprises
Focus region: UK, Europe
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Equals Group is a UK-based provider of foreign exchange services, facilitating international payments for individuals and corporations through a range of payment solutions. In recent years, the company has shifted from a B2C to a B2B focus, primarily through Equals Money, its broader bank account product pitched at SMEs, and Equals Money Solutions, its international payment network for large enterprises. The company also owns FairFX, a currency card and travel money business, and personal and business banking platform CardOneMoney.
In 2023, the company completed its acquisition of open banking payments platform Roqqett, as well as acquiring global payments services provider Oonex SA in order to expand its offering in Europe and foreign exchange company Hamer and Hamer as part of its ongoing growth strategy.
Euronet (Ria, XE)
Founded: 1994
CEO: Michael J. Brown
Customer focus: Remittances, Consumers, SMEs, Fintechs
Focus region: US
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Headquartered in Leawood, US, Euronet provides financial services and products to more than 200 countries around the world. It has three divisions with the largest, money transfer, now accounting for nearly half of all revenues. Euronet owns two major international money transfer companies, Ria and XE, which focus on remittances and consumer and SME payments respectively. Euronet also offers its platform and payout network to other industry players.
Euronet’s revenues increased 10% to $3.7bn in 2023 according to its results, with growth driven partly by direct-to consumer digital transactions. In February of this year, the company announced the acquisition of Singaporean digital payments company Infinitium.
Fiserv
Founded: 1984
CEO: Frank Bisignano
Customer focus: SMEs, Large Enterprises, Merchants, Financial Services Companies
Focus region: US, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Fiserv delivers financial services – including account processing, digital banking, card issuer services and payment processing – to more than 100 countries, with clients including more than six million merchants and almost 10,000 financial institutions. The company says it has serviced more than one billion card accounts overall.
In its 2023 results, Fiserv reported its revenues grew 8% to $19bn, driven primarily by its merchant acceptance segment. In 2023, Fiserv acquired Brazilian payments software distributor Skytef and sold its financial reconciliation business to Trintech. In January of this year, Fiserv launched the Fiserv Small Business Index, which it calls a first-of-its-kind indicator to assess the performance of small businesses in the US.
Flywire
Founded: 2009
CEO: Mike Massaro
Customer focus: B2B and Corporates in Education, Healthcare, Travel
Focus region: US, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Headquartered in Boston, US, Flywire provides a payments platform and bespoke software to clients across the education, healthcare, B2B and travel markets. The company enables payments for more than 3,700 clients across 140 currencies spanning 240 territories worldwide.
In Flywire’s 2023 results, the company reported revenues had increased 39% to $403.1m, with total payments volume reaching $24bn. In 2023 and early 2024 the company formed partnerships in China, India and Japan to improve education payments, while in November of 2023 it acquired StudyLink, a provider of international student admissions, application and agent management software.
Global Payments
Founded: 1967
CEO: Cameron Bready
Customer focus: SMEs, Large Enterprises, Merchants, Financial Services Companies
Focus region: North America, Europe, APAC, LatAm
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Based in Georgia, US, Global Payments offers payment technology and services to merchants and financial institutions, with a primary focus on ecommerce. With over 27,000 employees, the company serves more than four million customers in over 170 countries.
Last year, Global Payments closed its acquisition of rival Evo Payments, a $4bn deal serving as part of its shift to focus on B2B payments, and saw Jeffrey S. Sloan step down as CEO to be replaced by Cameron Bready, who had been working as the company’s President and COO. In its 2023 earnings report, the company announced revenues had increased 7.6% to $9.65bn.
Founded: 1998
CEO: Sundar Pichai
Customer focus: Consumers
Focus region: Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 1
Google is a multinational company with services across search engine technology, computer software, ecommerce, consumer electronics, AI and online advertising. The company’s Google Pay mobile payment service is used by millions of users to make cross-border payments worldwide. Google Pay is used to make payments on websites, in shops and in apps through cards saved to a Google Account.
In February this year, Google announced it was going to replace Google Pay with Google Wallet – the company’s digital wallet platform that enables users to store payment methods, passes, tickets, keys and IDs on their Android phones – in the US.
Grupo Elektra
Founded: 1950
CEO: Ricardo Benjamín Salinas Pliego
Customer focus: Consumers, SME
Focus region: LatAm
Years on Top 100 Map: 1
Grupo Elektra is a financial services and retail corporation that offers a variety of ecommerce, money transfer and financial institutions, focusing on the LatAm market. Its financial division is made up of Banco Azteca, Purpose Financial, Afore Azteca, Seguros Azteca and Punto Casa de Bolsa.
The company’s remittances service, Elektra Envios, enables transfers to Banco Azteca digital accounts, as well as more than 2,000 Elektra and Banco Azteca branches. Elektra has partnered with Western Union to power its remittances network, and in September 2023 expanded their money transfer service options to enable users to receive money in Mexico by sending a message via chatbot.
Intermex
Founded: 1994
CEO: Bob Lisy
Customer focus: Consumers, Remittances
Focus region: US, Canada, LatAm, Europe
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Miami-based Intermex enables international money transfers, primarily between the US and Latin America and the Caribbean. In total, the company enables money transfers to more than 60 countries from the US, Canada and Europe.
Intermex maintains an ‘omnichannel’ approach that prioritises cash-based retail transfers, particularly for money sent from the US to the LatAm region, though it has increased its attention on digital transfers. The company completed its acquisition of competitor La Nacional’s non-US assets in 2023, through which it expects to boost digital transactions in Europe while bolstering existing agent numbers in the US. Intermex reported that revenues rose 20.5% to $658.7m in its 2023 results.
Mastercard
Founded: 1966
CEO: Michael Miebach
Customer focus: Consumers, Businesses, Merchants, Financial Institutions
Focus region: US, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Mastercard is a US-based financial services company, payment processor and the owner of one of the world’s biggest card networks. Altogether Mastercard has partnerships with 22,000 financial institutions and serves customers in more than 210 countries and territories worldwide. It also enables cross-border payments through Mastercard Cross-Border Services, which facilitates international payments for customers in more than 60 currencies to over 100 markets.
The company saw revenues rise 13% to $25.1bn in its 2023 results, processing a gross dollar volume of $9tn. In early 2024, it announced partnerships with Nexi, Worldpay and the Clearing House, as well as a new connection to Alipay Wallet that will enhance its cross-border payments offering.
Monex
Founded: 1985
CEO: Mauricio Naranjo Gonzalez
Customer focus: SMEs, Corporates, Institutional, Fintechs
Focus region: North America, LatAm, Europe, APAC
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Monex is a specialist in commercial foreign exchange services, providing international payment and FX risk management solutions to more than 70,000 clients globally. With more than 2,800 employees and $11.1bn in total assets, the company facilitates the delivery of international payments through its region-specific, online digital payment platforms. It has offices in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia.
In 2023, Monex’s US division, Monex USA, launched new B2B payments partnerships with Kountable, CloudPAYIt, Integrim and TKambio USA, as well as a hedging partnership with HedgeStar. Also in 2023, Monex Mexico launched Monex ONE, a fully digital account for making international payments and deposits. Monex Europe, meanwhile, was granted both investment and payment licences in Spain earlier this year.
Nexi Group
Founded: 1939
CEO: Paolo Bertoluzzo
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs. Large Corporations, Banks, Financial Institutions
Focus region: Europe
Years on Top 100 Map: 1
Nexi Group (formed by a merger of digital payments players Nexi, Nets and Sia) offers businesses a range of digital payments solutions. The company is now present in more than 25 countries and works with around 2.9 million merchants and around 10,600 payment specialists. In 2023, the company saw revenues rise 7% to €3.4bn ($3.6bn) in 2023.
In February, Nexi Group partnered with open ecommerce Woo to integrate Nexi’s leading technologies into WooCommerce’s platform. It has also partnered with Mastercard to support open banking account-based payments, as well as payments provider Compass to enhance Nexi’s SmartPOS system with Compass’s BNPL offering.
OFX
Founded: 1998
CEO: Skander Malcolm
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Merchants, Fintechs
Focus region: APAC, Europe, US
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Founded in Australia, OFX is a provider of FX and global payments solutions that enables international money transfers to more than 170 countries across more than 50 currencies. The company has transferred a total of A$293bn (c.$192bn as of April 2024 exchange rates) and has one million customers worldwide. It has more than 700 staff across offices in eight locations, as well as 59 global operating licences.
In May 2023, OFX announced it would be acquiring spend management platform Paytron, which followed earlier investment in treasury management company TreasurUp and the acquisition of FX provider Firma; in combination, these acquisitions have seen OFX moving further into the B2B space and North America.
Payoneer
Founded: 2005
CEO: John Caplan
Customer focus: SMEs, Merchants, Freelancers, Corporates, Financial Services
Focus region: US, Europe, APAC
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Based in New York, US, Payoneer provides an international payments platform to online sellers, large businesses. freelancers and financial institutions. The company has more than five million customers and has more than 2,000 employees worldwide across 25 global offices. It became a publicly traded company in June 2021.
In its 2023 results, Payoneer reported that revenues rose 32% to $831m and for the first time also released a detailed breakout of its revenue in terms of customer segments, showing that while many think of the company as enterprise led, enterprise payouts accounted for just 7% of revenue in Q4 2023. Meanwhile, SMB business across marketplaces, B2B and merchant services accounted for 62%. Also in 2023, Payoneer acquired real-time data platform Spott.
PayPal (Xoom)
Founded: 1998 (Xoom founded 2001)
CEO: Alex Chriss
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Merchants
Focus region: US, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Headquartered in the US, PayPal operates an online payments platform that allows businesses and consumers to send and receive payments online. The company currently has around 426 million active accounts across more than 200 markets.
PayPal 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. In February, new CEO Alex Chriss held a First Look keynote that laid out a six-point strategy for the company, including improvements to its checkout process and the launch of a cash back system. Then in March, it announced that it would be adding stablecoin-based remittance services to Xoom using its US dollar-backed digital currency PayPal USD (PYUSD), itself launched just last year.
Remitly
Founded: 2011
CEO: Matt Oppenheimer
Customer focus: Remittances, Consumers
Focus region: US, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Based in Seattle, US, Remitly enables international money transfers across more than 100 currencies via its remittance service and mobile app. Since its IPO in 2021, the company has built its global disbursement network with a focus on immigrants, and as of year-end 2023 serves more than 5,000 corridors across 170 countries; around four billion bank accounts and 1.2 billion mobile wallets; and more than 460,000 cash pickup locations.
In its 2023 results, Remitly announced that revenues had climbed 44% to $944m and reported its first positive full-year adjusted EBITDA numbers. The company is now projecting FY 2024 revenue to pass $1bn for the first time. Last year, the company also expanded into the Middle East with the launch of its outbound remittance product in the UAE and the opening of an office in Dubai.
StoneX
Founded: 1924
CEO: Sean O’Connor
Customer focus: Corporates, Fintechs, Financial Services, Non-Profits
Focus region: US, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 5
Headquartered in the US, StoneX is a financial services organisation providing foreign exchange and cross-border payment services to businesses and organisations. It serves more than 54,000 corporate, institutional and payments clients and more than 420,000 active retail accounts across 180 countries. One of StoneX’s key capabilities is in emerging markets, for which it serves many top-tier banks.
In its FY 2023 results, StoneX reported revenues of $60.9bn. In 2023, the company, in partnership with ACX, launched a digital carbon marketplace in the US that allows StoneX clients to trade carbon with a transparent solution. The company also announced it was one of the first financial organisations to adopt Swift’s Payment Pre-validation Service for cross-border payments.
Visa
Founded: 1958
CEO: Ryan McInerney
Customer focus: Merchants, Financial Institutions, Businesses, Government Entities, Consumers
Focus region: US, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Based in California, US, Visa is one of the biggest global payments companies in the world, with a card network that spans more than 200 countries and territories across a network of more than 130 million merchant locations. It has around 28,800 employees. Visa’s cross-border payments arm, Visa Direct, facilitates real-time payments for a growing number of fintechs and cross-border payment companies. Visa also acquired Currencycloud in 2021, and in 2023 the companies launched Visa Cross-Border Solutions, which encompasses cross-border money movement offerings for banks, fintechs, corporates and other payment institutions.
Visa saw a 11% increase in full-year revenues to $32.7bn in its FY 2023 results (which the company reported in calendar Q3 2022), as well as a 9% increase in processed payments volume across 212.6 billion transactions. Visa Direct has continued to expand and launch new partnerships in recent months, including Western Union, PayPal and Remitly.
Walmart
Founded: 1962
CEO: Doug McMillon
Customer focus: Consumers, Retail, Remittances
Focus region: US, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 5
Walmart is the world’s largest retail corporation in terms of revenue, with total revenue growing 6% to $648bn in 2023 and a market cap of over $485bn as of mid-April 2024. The company has long been active in remittances, having partnered with MoneyGram, Ria and Western Union to facilitate transfers to 200 countries (including US territories) from stores across the US through its Walmart2World and Walmart2Walmart segments.
Walmart also owns Walmart Marketplace, a competitor to Amazon. In its FY 2023 results from February 2024, the company said it had approximately 255 million customers, served by 10,500 stores and ecommerce websites spanning 19 countries. Walmart International (separate from Walmart US) reported that ecommerce sales grew 44% in Q4 2023.
Western Union
Founded: 1851
CEO: Devin McGranahan
Customer focus: Remittances
Focus region: US, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
In 2006, US-based Western Union shifted its focus from communications to cross-border payments. The company has since become one of the world’s largest remittance players, allowing people to transfer money to over 200 countries and territories online, via an app or from one of hundreds of thousands of Western Union agent locations. The company has more than 150 million retail and digital customers.
In 2023, the company completed the sale of Western Union Business Solutions and continued to expand the use of its app and digital wallet worldwide. As of their FY 23 results, Western Union had launched its app in 12 countries, with a digital wallet in four European countries and one LatAm nation.
Wise
Founded: 2011
CEO: Kristo Käärmann
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Financial Services
Focus region: Europe, US, APAC
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Formerly known as TransferWise, Wise is a money transfer operator allowing consumers to send money to 160 countries across 40 currencies. The company also provides international business accounts for more than 300,000 businesses and has reached 16 million customers worldwide. Since becoming a public company in 2021, Wise has raised a total of $1.7bn over 13 rounds.
In the company’s FY 23 results, the company reported that revenues rose 51% to £846m, with money transfers totalling £105bn across the year. The company went through a visual rebrand in 2023, as well as launching instant Chinese yuan sends for WeChat users. Its Wise Assets investment feature, launched in 2022, expanded in the UK, Europe and Singapore and partnerships with its Wise Platform product gave 25 million more people and businesses access to Wise-powered payments.
Worldline
Founded: 1974
CEO: Gilles Grapinet
Customer focus: Merchants, Financial Services
Focus region: France, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 5
Worldline is a French multinational payments company with operations in more than 40 countries. The business specialises in merchant and transactional services for processing in-store and online payments.
The company reported that revenues rose 6% to €4.61bn ($5.0bn as of April 2024 exchange rates) in 2023. Also in 2023 it announced a joint venture with Crédit Agricole to provide digital payment services for merchants in France; in April this year that joint venture took shape in the form of CAWL, a new payments services brand offering all-in-one payment solutions combining acceptance and acquisition.
Discover how these companies’ payments capabilities differ with our FX pricing and capabilities data
Independently owned
The companies in this section are independently owned, meaning they are not (at the time of writing) listed on the stock market.
Al Fardan Exchange
Founded: 1971
CEO: Hasan Fardan Al Fardan
Customer focus: Remittances, SMES, Enterprises
Focus region: Middle East, Europe, APAC, LatAm
Years on Top 100 Map: 4
UAE-based Al Fardan Exchange is a leading foreign exchange and money transfer business, offering cross-border payments and forex solutions, with over 80 branches across the UAE and partnerships with 150 financial services organisations worldwide.
In March this year, the company partnered with TerraPay, which will provide digital payments infrastructure to bolster Al Fardan Exchange’s remittances offering.
DolFinTech
Founded: 2022
CEO: Alberto Laureano
Customer focus: Consumers
Focus region: US, LatAm
Years on Top 100 Map: 1
DolFinTech is a consumer financial services company focused on money transfers. The company was formed through a merger in December 2022 of two existing brands; DolEx, a multinational provider of international remittances and payments services with a network of more than 500 retail stores and over 3,000 independent retail agents; and Barri, another money transfer provider with locations across the US and Puerto Rico. Both brands primarily focus on the Hispanic community making money transfers from the US to countries including Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and more.
Fexco
Founded: 1981
CEO: Neil Hosty
Customer focus: B2B Payments
Focus region: Europe, APAC, South America
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Ireland-based Fexco processes more than €34bn in transactions across the financial exchange, treasury, digital tax and government-backed financing sectors. It provides solutions spanning currency conversion, international payments, retail FX and asset finance. The company now has over 2,500 employees across 29 countries. It facilitates payments across 130 currencies to 200 countries worldwide, and has more than 3,000 customers.
In November 2023, Fexco announced it had hired ex-JP Morgan Payments director Sara Savidge as CEO of corporate payments. That month, Fexco Group reported that it had seen a total income of €157.5m in its 2022 financial year.
Mukuru
Founded: 2004
CEO: Andy Jury
Customer focus: Remittances
Focus region: Africa
Years on Top 100 Map: 5
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. With more than 13 million customers, the company has enabled over 100 million money transactions globally. Mukuru has 320,000 pay-in and payout locations, and 42 branches across Africa. It operates in over 50 countries across over 300 remittance corridors.
Through 60 partnerships, the company enables more than 100 brands to provide cash out points. has an established network. It has partnered with WorldRemit to become its remittances payout partner in territories where it has locations, and has been one of several African remittance players looking to expand services in West Africa. In 2023, Mukuru launched ‘drive-through’ money transfer services in Zimbabwe, and the company recently expanded its services to Uganda.
Swift
Founded: 1973
CEO: Javier Pérez-Tasso
Customer focus: Financial Institutions
Focus region: Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 2
Swift is the world’s leading provider of financial messaging services, with a payments network spanning more than 11,000 financial institutions across more than 200 countries and territories. The company provides the messaging network that banks use to send payment instructions to other banks worldwide.
In recent years, Swift has participated in a number of initiatives to try and improve efficiency and reduce costs of cross-border payments. This includes migrating its payment messaging platform so that it complies with the ISO 20022 standard; working with the G20 to achieve its goals for enhancing cross-border payments; launching Swift Go, a product targeting low-value payments that is being used by more than 500 banks; supporting the development of central bank digital currencies and partnering with crypto companies, such as crypto data provider Chainlink. In November 2023, Swift connected instant payment systems across Europe to enable 24/7 processing across borders.
Viamericas
Founded: 1999
CEO: Paul Dwyer
Customer focus: Consumers, Remittances, Merchants
Focus region: US, LatAm, APAC, Africa
Years on Top 100 Map: 4
US-based Viamericas provides money transfer, bill payment, processing and top-up services across a payment network spanning 100,000 payout locations in 80 countries. The company supports businesses and merchants aiming to implement international payment services.
Viamericas has previously partnered with Mastercard and Union Plus to bolster its remittances presence worldwide. In January 2024, the company partnered with 24Xoro to provide additional options for money transfer recipients in Mexico.
Private equity-backed
We distinguish private equity-owned companies from those that have received venture or growth financing, in part because they are generally more established, long-running businesses. Here are FXC Intelligence’s top cross-border payment picks that are backed by private equity investors in 2024.
Banking Circle
Founded: 2013
CEO: Anders la Cour
Customer focus: Payment Businesses, Marketplaces, Banks
Focus region: Europe
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Headquartered in Luxembourg, Banking Circle provides financial institutions with direct access to clearing and payment schemes in multiple countries, allowing them to provide cross-border payment services. The company facilitates payments across 24 currencies for more than 250 financial institutions worldwide, and is responsible for 6% of European B2C ecommerce flows. The company also has offices in the UK, Germany and Denmark.
In early 2024, Banking Circle opened a new location in Connecticut, US, for its US-based division (Banking Circle US), which is now aiming to build partnerships with banks across the country. In February 2023, Banking Circle launched an Agency Banking service to give clients faster access to the European payments market. Also in 2023, the company partnered with ecommerce giant Ant Group and business spending solution Pleo, as well as expanding into Australia through the launch of BC Payments.
Convera
Founded: 2009
CEO: Patrick Gauthier
Customer focus: B2B Payments, SMEs, Large Businesses, Fintechs, Financial Services
Focus region: US, Global
Years on Top 100 Map: 3
Convera provides FX risk management, international payments and education payment services to over 30,000 customers, spanning more than 140 currencies and over 200 countries and territories. It has over 60 global banking partners and claims to be the largest non-bank global B2B payments platform.
Formerly Western Union Business Solutions, itself formed from the acquisitions of Custom House in 2009 and Travelex Global Business Payments in 2011, US-based Convera was formed in 2022 from a $910m private equity buyout from parent Western Union. The company is focused on customers across B2B, B2C and C2B, and is pursuing the fragmented B2B market as a strong growth opportunity. Recent partnerships include human capital management company ADP and Ireland-based payments provider MiFinity.
Currencies Direct (TorFX)
Founded: 1996
CEO: Antony Jenkins
Customer focus: Consumer, SME
Focus region: Europe
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
With more than 25 offices worldwide, UK-based Currencies Direct has facilitated international money transfers for more than 425,000 people since its inception. It currently enables money transfers to 120 countries across more than 40 currencies.
In March 2022, the company received a £140m investment from alternative asset investment manager Blackstone. Currencies Direct is one of few players of scale left that serves the high-touch, higher end consumer money transfer segment. Through parent company Redpin, which rebranded to focus on embedded software and payments for residential property in November 2023, it owns a number of other money transfer/payments brands, including TorFX.
iBanFirst
Founded: 2013
CEO: Pierre-Antoine Dusolier
Customer focus: SMEs, Large Enterprises
Focus region: Europe
Years on Top 100 Map: 6
Founded in France and based in Belgium, iBanFirst offers an online platform for multicurrency transactions. It now allows businesses to send and receive payments in 30 currencies to and from 140 countries. The company serves more than 10,000 clients worldwide. As of May 2023, the company had more than 350 employees in 10 European countries, processing a volume of transactions worth more than €1.4bn each month.
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. In November 2022, iBanFirst acquired UK-based FX provider Cornhill to help expand its instant payment services to more SMEs in Europe. In May 2023, it launched its first USD accounts to support companies expanding to the US. In January 2024, the company’s Romanian division saw 97% growth, showing an increase in FX hedging for Romanian companies.
Moneycorp
Founded: 1962
CEO: Velizar Tarashev
Customer focus: Consumers, SMEs, Large Enterprises
Focus region: Europe, Americas, APAC, Middle East
Years in Top 100 Map: 6
Moneycorp is an international payments company with headquarters in the UK. It provides corporate and personal money transfer services across 120 currencies and more than 190 countries, as well as FX risk management solutions. In 2022 (the most recent year for which figures are available), Moneycorp traded £73.3bn ($90.7bn), with over one million payments sent.
Over recent years, the company has shifted away from the high-end consumer and travel money segments to re-focus on B2B payments. Moneycorp has also been continuing its expansion, opening a new office in Paris in September 2022, having previously acquired banking licences in Canada, Spain, Romania, the US, Brazil and Gibraltar. In 2023 long-standing CEO Mark Horgan stepped down, assuming the role of Deputy Chairman in early 2024, with former CFO Velizar Tarashev succeeding him.
MoneyGram
Founded: 1940
CEO: Alex Holmes
Customer focus: Remittances, Consumers
Focus region: US, Global
Years in Top 100 Map: 6
Tracing its roots back to 1940 as Travellers Express, MoneyGram has since become one of the biggest money transfer companies in the world with one of the largest cash payout networks globally. More than 50 million MoneyGram customers a year send money online or at one of over 400,000 global retail locations to recipients in more than 200 countries.
In June 2023, MoneyGram went private as part of a $1.8bn acquisition deal with private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners. The company has been shifting increasingly towards digital money transfers, as well as non-remittance consumer money transfers. It has also partnered with Stellar on crypto remittance services, and is currently sponsoring Formula 1 team Haas F1 (see our full report on F1’s payment sponsorships). In March 2024, partnered with Saudi Arabian fintech app barraq to expand its presence in the Middle East, and in April 2024 it partnered with Tencent to enable digital remittances in China.
Small World
Founded: 2005
CEO: Khalid Fellahi
Customer focus: Remittances, Businesses
Focus region: Europe, Americas, Africa
Years in Top 100 Map: 6
London-based Small World is a provider of international payment services for consumers and businesses. The company enables customers across more than 65 countries to send money to over 180 destinations worldwide, with cash payouts available across 360,000 pickup locations. Overall, the company facilitates more than 15 million transactions annually, and has more than 1,000 employees across offices in 19 countries.
Small World was acquired by Equistone Partners Europe in 2018. In November 2023, Small World partnered with Terrapay to enable instant bank transfers from the EU and the UK to Senegal.
Transnetwork
Founded: 2002
CEO: Jorge Raull
Customer focus: B2B, Money Transfer Providers, Financial Institutions, Fintechs
Focus region: US, LatAm
Years in Top 100 Map: 1
Transnetwork is a B2B cross-border processing and payment platform enabling banks and money transfer companies to connect to key markets in the LatAm region. Based in the US, the company primarily serves the US to LatAm corridor, with offices in Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. It has received investment from FlexPoint Ford, GCP Capital Partners and Investar Financial.
Transnetwork spans more than 50 send partners (banks and money transfer operators) and 45 receive partners (banks and retailers), and the company enables transfers to more than 75,000 payout locations across ten countries. Transnetwork reports that more than 700 banks have been reached through its platform. In October 2023, an announcement from S&P Global showed that Transnetwork was planning to issue a $300m loan to fund its acquisition of PNC Payment Holdings, a subsidiary of PNC Financial Group Services, which would strengthen its position as provider of B2B payments from US to the LatAm region.
Travelex
Founded: 1976
CEO: Richard Wazacz
Customer focus: Consumers
Focus region: Europe, APAC, Middle East
Years in Top 100 Map: 6
Travelex is a foreign exchange provider that enables purchases of foreign currencies, as well as cross-border purchases through its multicurrency prepaid Travelex Money Card and Travelex Money App. In September 2023, the company completed a $110m refinancing deal. The company has a growing network of over 1,500 sites (including stores and ATMs) across airports, transport hubs, shopping centres and high streets worldwide.
Travelex continues to expand globally. In April 2024, Travelex launched a Click-and-Collect FX service across Hong Kong. Shortly after, it launched seven stores at Zayed International Airport in the UAE. The company also won a five-year contract to operate in Munich Airport in April 2024.
Worldpay
Founded: 1994
CEO: Charles Drucker
Customer focus: Merchants, Ecommerce
Focus region: US, Global
Years in Top 100 Map: 1
Worldpay is a payment processor that enables businesses to make and accept payments globally. The company’s operations span 146 countries and 135 currencies, and it serves more than one million merchants worldwide, handling more than 130 million transactions a day. The company processed $2.2tn in 2022 and saw total revenue of $4.8bn.
Worldpay was acquired by FIS in 2019 to become its merchant services division, but in 2023 FIS sold the majority stake to private equity giant GTCR, in a move that saw Worldpay once again become its own standalone company. In March 2024, Worldpay partnered with Mastercard to reduce payment fraud. It also recently partnered with NetCents to boost the adoption of digital assets, as well as FreedomPay to provide integrated payments technology for retail and hospitality businesses.
