Goldman Sachs rolled out transaction banking in the U.K. yesterday through a modernized, API-enabled platform built on the cloud, entering a crowded space dominated by the likes of Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase. Transaction banking refers to cash management and treasury services for corporate and institutional clients.

The $1.2 trillion Goldman Sachs will offer traditional products through transaction banking (TxB), giving the bank the ability to deal with U.K. businesses operating globally. The bank gains a competitive advantage with the offering, Luc Teboul, managing director and head of engineering for transaction banking, told Bank Automation News. Goldman Sachs’ competitors tend to operate locally, making it more difficult for them to manage global payments and data, he said.

“We are the first bank to do this at this scale on the cloud,” Teboul said, adding that there are plans for expansion into the European market late this year or early in 2022.

The digital-first open technology platform provides cash management and treasury services for corporate and institutional clients, with self-service client onboarding and account opening. The platform also provides a secure, integrated mobile authentication, including for liquidity management, virtual accounts, payments and escrow services.

“The platform has been designed for local customers,” Teboul noted. “The way we design products is to ensure that the product is as consistent as possible regardless of where you are conducting business.”

Treasury clients with a TxB deposit or escrow account, or who use TxB payments services, can use Goldman Sachs’ APIs to build out and automate payment execution and reconciliation, liquidity tracking and forecasting, and foreign exchange risk management. The APIs can also be used by treasury management systems, accounting systems, and other solutions that corporate treasurers already use to manage their business.

Today’s U.K. launch follows on the heels of Goldman Sachs’s first foray into transaction banking with U.S. operations in June 2020. According to data from the bank, U.S. transaction banking attracted more than 250 clients for Goldman Sachs, taking in more than $35 billion in deposits and processing trillions of dollars through its systems, since its launch.

The bank’s TxB in the U.S. has also partnered with software companies to offer banking as a service, leveraging its infrastructure to build native payments and banking into the software companies’ own customer-facing applications. While Teboul would not specify the fintech partners that might work with Goldman Sachs in the U.K., he did acknowledge negotiating with several fintech partners.

Goldman Sachs’ US TxB partners have included payments infrastructure giant Stripe and treasury management system provider GTreasury. Stripe expanded its bank partner network in the U.S. to include Goldman Sachs Bank USA in December 2020, a partnership that allowed Goldman Sachs to offer checking accounts and other financial services through Stripe’s e-commerce providers.

In June 2020, GTreasury partnered with Goldman Sachs’ transaction banking to offer global payment capabilities and workflow solutions to corporate treasury departments. Most recently, the bank announced in March a deal with software company SAP Ariba to provide cross-border global payments to companies, available in select SAP Ariba solutions.

Goldman Sachs TxB in the U.K. will make payments products available initially, and launch banking products over time. The goal is to eventually provide a full suite of client solutions inclusive of payments in more than 125 currencies, deposit accounts, escrow services, liquidity solutions, full file and API connectivity, and payroll.