Remitly’s IPO reveals details of its technology moves

Remittance fintech Remitly began trading on the Nasdaq Thursday, with its IPO starting at $43 . The Seattle-based company’s S-1 filings, filed ahead of its IPO reveal details about some of the fintech’s technology efforts and how they contribute to its business model. [caption id="attachment_219825" align="alignright" width="300"] Image by CanStock[/caption] Remitly is built on a cloud-based service-oriented architecture, or SOA, according to the filing. SOA is a development paradigm that encapsulates functions as services — or packets of coding — so that developers do not have to recode every function they might use. For instance, a service might be code that calculates and applies a fee to a transaction. Generally, SOA supports fast development, and using a multitenant cloud solution allows multiple developers to quickly leverage the services across the internet. One of the benefits of an SOA-built app is that it’s possible to offer those services to other developers via the cloud; this is basically what Remitly for Developers, launched in 2020, provides. This software-as-a-service offering allows developers to use an application programmable interface (API) to call Remitly’s own custom-built services and compliance and regulatory infrastructure. That makes it easy for developers to add cross-border remittances to their mobile apps and digital banking solutions. From a business standpoint, this means an increase in foreign currency market exchange rate fees (FX markup) for Remitly, without the costs of customer acquisition. “For example, a business may utilize our Remitly for Developers service to send or receive payments utilizing the payment rails established by Remitly,” the S-1 filing states. “We believe that Remitly for Developers will increase volume, transactions and revenue generated from the same network of global payment and disbursement partners developed to serve our core remittances business and that fees and FX markups paid by our customers for utilizing our network will lower the per transaction expense on such network (without additional marketing expense).” Remitly’s IPO filing also provides a look at the technology expenses for the fintech. As might be expected, technology and development costs have risen since the fintech started up in 2019, when it spent $32 billion on technology, a number that rose to $40.8 billion in 2020. Numbers for 2021 aren’t available, but by midyear the company has already spent $26.8 billion compared to $19.1 billion during the same period in 2020. That spend was driven by increased software, cloud and personnel costs as more employees — the company stands at 1,600 full-time equivalent employees — came on board, the S-1 stated. That said, as a percentage of revenue, technology and development costs have decreased to 16% in 2020 compared to 25% for 2019, as Remitly has leveraged its technology platform and infrastructure across a larger revenue and customer base. That percentage has also decreased to 13% during the first half of this year as compared to the first half of 2020, when it was 18%, the filing noted.

Remitly’s IPO reveals details of its technology moves

Fintech leverages service-oriented architecture to expand business model

Remitly launches IPO at $43 a share

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Remitly’s IPO reveals details of its technology moves

Fintech leverages service-oriented architecture to expand business model

Remitly launches IPO at $43 a share

Plaid partners with digital banking platform Q2

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