Inside Wells Fargo’s global payments strategy

Wells Fargo , through its partnership with cross-border B2B payments provider TransferMate , is showing its global payments ambitions. According to Judd Holroyde, Head of Global Product Management for Wells Fargo, as e-commerce grows, digitally-driven social interactions between people and between businesses are blurring traditional, physical borders. “You've got more messages, more commerce, more people and more communication, all crossing borders at a much higher velocity than ever before," he said. "Part of our strategy has been looking at how we can extend ourselves and our proposition in support of our customers in a more digital and modern form, from an international network perspective.” Holroyde oversees an enterprise-focused program called Global Reach, using partnerships and technology to digitally extend the bank’s reach beyond U.S. markets and building up use cases on the receipt and payment sides of transactions. TransferMate’s Global Invoice Connect platform is the latest example of this effort, he noted. Also see: Wells Fargo Taps TransferMate for Cross-Border B2B Payments One of the reasons that Wells Fargo was interested in TransferMate, Holroyde said, was the ability to digitally extend its international footprint into 50-plus markets. “One of the big friction points for companies, especially on the receivable side, is the complication of getting money back into the U.S.," he explained, noting that the cost of traditional cross-border wires, for payers, can be prohibitive. Using TransferMate, the bank can, in most cases, reduce the cost to customers by 50% to 75% per transaction. In addition, payments have become "exceptionally frustrating" at times because listing fees create a mismatch between the original invoice amount and the ultimate payment coming back to the beneficiary, which is another pain point that TransferMate's platform addresses. According to Sinead Fitzmaurice, co-founder and CFO of TransferMate, the Wells Fargo partnership was a product of two years of due diligence and preparation. The complexity of the cross-border environment and the regulatory hurdles involved prohibit banks from taking on the task of building these platforms themselves, she said. Terry Clune, co-founder and CEO of TransferMate, noted that the bank's corporate clients can get paid through the TransferMate platform the same day or within 24 hours, rather than a matter of days through traditional wires. “What we're bringing to Wells Fargo is a new revenue stream to banks that isn't there at the moment,” he said. “We're regulated on both sides so, for the guy who's paying a California company from Australia, he's paying into our local Australian account." TransferMate's looming competitor is global payments service SWIFT , whose SWIFT gpi (global payments innovation) aims to transform the cross-border payments space it has long dominated. Despite making use of TransferMate's platform, Wells Fargo is still "very heavily focused" on SWIFT's gpi program, Holroyde noted. "It essentially allows much greater visibility as to the status, location and, ultimately, confirmation of beneficiary receipt, in the SWIFT wire form," Holroyde said. "That's also a very important part of this ecosystem for us because we're a tremendous wire volume producer, just because of the size of the enterprise and the breadth of our customer base." According to SWIFT, more than 3,500 banks, accounting for 85% of its total payments traffic, have committed to adopting gpi and more than $300 billion is sent every day in 148 currencies. On average, 40% of SWIFT gpi payments are credited to end beneficiaries within five minutes, 50% are credited within 30 minutes, 75% within 6 hours and “almost 100%” within 24 hours. Wim Raymaekers, director of SWIFT gpi, said the gpi standard resulted from feedback the company received from banks. The four key elements of the ensuing transformation were providing faster, more predictable transactions; better tracking with more payment information; additional transparency on fees and charges; and more cohesive, comprehensive remittance data. SWIFT's competitive advantage is its reach, since 11,000 banks are on its systems. "Startups need to build a customer base, which is very difficult," Raymaekers said. "This is a community of banks. We are about innovation at scale, and scale is important because of consistency of experience." SWIFT's roadmap includes further reducing interbank friction and helping banks provide corporations, many of which hold accounts at multiple banks, access to a wider range of faster, seamless services.

Inside Wells Fargo’s global payments strategy

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