Investment and merger of CurrencyFair with Assembly Payments.
Global cross-border payments platform CurrencyFair and Assembly Payments, whose platform automates complex payment workflows, have merged as a result of a strategic investment by Standard Chartered, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval.
SC Ventures the ventures and fintech investments unit of Standard Chartered is doubling down on its commitment to the rapidly growing payments industry, following its earlier investment in Assembly Payments in 2020.
According to Standard Chartered digital payments is a core strategic area for financial organisation and its 2020 investment in Assembly Payments enhanced in the domestic payments business.
By bringing together the complementary strengths of CurrencyFair and Assembly, we are supporting the merged company in offering the full range of payment services, providing retail and corporate clients access to fast, high-volume domestic and cross-border payments.
CurrencyFair and Assembly will retain their ‘customer first’ cultures, deepen these relationships by enabling customers to easily access, build, connect, and use any payment service from within their existing business operations without any of the technical, compliance or geographical complexities associated with traditional financial services offerings. The merged proposition will focus on five core capabilities – payments, global payment accounts, partner ecosystem, lending and settlement, and services – to address the growth opportunities in the US$2 trillion revenue market for payments1.”
Global e-commerce sales, estimated to be almost US$26 trillion in 20182, have further accelerated as businesses and consumers increasingly look to the digital marketplace due to COVID-193. A substantial number of these transactions have taken place between continents and markets, resulting in cross border digital payments becoming more complex and requiring workflows that involve many steps, systems, and interactions.
Corporate clients are also increasingly demanding more value-added services from their payments providers, to consolidate all aspects of their payment value chain within a seamless and cost-efficient offering that meets domestic and cross border payment flow needs.
Recognising this opportunity, the new company will focus on addressing key pain points including the fragmentation of payment ecosystems, the complexity of implementing different payment ecosystems from a technical, operational, financial, and regulatory perspective, privacy and security of data, and cross-border e-commerce for multi-market and multi-currency collection requirements.
E-Commerce is one of the highest conviction themes for SC Ventures, and we will continue to grow and scale our capabilities and geographies to support the transition to digital economies, noted Alex Manson from SC Ventures.
Businesses around the world continue to accelerate their offline to online journey, and increase investment into digitising their products and services.
As a result, the importance of providing complementary payment services such as non-card payments, fraud management, reconciliation, foreign exchange, and liquidity via a product-rich experience is critical.
