what's the problem with payments?
Probably the most fundamental need for your business is getting paid for the things you sell - or paying for things you need. Yet when there's more than one region involved, both can become a major challenge.
There are essentially two parts to every payment:
availability of funds
We'd hope that it's safe to assume that the buyer can afford to pay the supplier - if that's not the case then the whole transaction is a non-starter. But the funds need to be available to the seller in the right currency. We take care of that with our foreign exchange and liquidity platforms, so let's set that emelent aside for now.
transparency of information
This is the area where a great many payments falter or fail. Banks require information on the source of funds and the people and businesses involved in the transaction. Without it they risk penalties for insufficient anti-money-laundering diligence, so any information gaps can lead to delay or even refusal. The principal information vehicle for global banks is the SWIFT messaging system, which unfortunately lacks the capacity to convey all the relevant data, leading to requests for further details, significantly slowing the process.
The biz.Clarency system provides full transparency to all authorised parties and even includes an ingenious extension of the SWIFT MT103 message to make gigabytes of information readily available on demand.
same-day clearance
With staffed locations in UK, South Africa, Kenya, Mauritius and Singapore, we've got you covered for 16 hours of every day. And our liquidity capability allows us to deliver same-day settlement of payments. If all parties have cleared our rapid but comprehensive compliance criteria then payment instructions received by 14:00 UTC will usually be settled on the same day.
We really meant it when we said we're working to make cross-border trade as straightforward as local.
