Currencycloud, the Visa-owned B2B payments firm, announced on Tuesday that it has received the Australian Financial Services (AFS) license from the country’s financial market regulator, ASIC.
The new license will allow the company to offer its full suite of services to the businesses operating in Australia. Currencycloud already has a few clients in Australia, but it only offers limited international payments services to them.
The move of the payments company into Australia was strategic. It already appointed Nick Briscoe as the Country Manager for Australia in January, which provided the company the springboard to build the team and ramp up customer support in-country.
In a statement, Briscoe said: “The fintech landscape here is incredibly vibrant and highly sophisticated in its approach to both clients and service providers. Gaining our Australian licence puts us in a great position to support our existing Australian clients and their ambitions, as well as work with other businesses across the country.”
B2B Payments
Currencycloud primarily offers Cloud-based APIs to banks and financial services providers, enabling them to offer currency exchange services. In addition, it provides real-time notifications on foreign exchange transactions, multi-currency wallets and virtual account management.
The startup was acquired by payments giant Visa last December at a valuation of £700 million. Visa was already an investor in the company and pumped $80 million prior to the acquisition in 2020.
Meanwhile, the existing Aussie client base of Currencycloud is optimistic as the company can now expand its offerings.
Alex Prater, the CEO for FX Corp, said: “With the expansion of Currencycloud's offering, FX Corp has been able to augment the range of currency capabilities it provides to clients, particularly in minor and exotic currencies which have traditionally been problematic to deal in. Currencycloud offers a compelling value proposition which has assisted FX Corp to offer a more complete range of services to its growing client base.”
