- Benjamin Wong, who leads the Singapore-based company TranSwap, covered a range of topics in an interview – including open banking, high fees and more
- The interview was with industry journal PYMNTS
- “Comparing this industry between five years ago and now, there’s a lot of technology that makes it easier to do business”, he said
The CEO of a leading international money transfer firm has criticised traditional payments services, saying they “may not have the ability or technological infrastructure to facilitate high-volume transfers”.
Benjamin Wong, who serves as CEO of the Singaporean firm TranSwap, argued in an interview with industry publication PYMNTS that technology was a better solution.
According to Wong, traditional – or legacy – payments systems are often associated with slowness and a pronounced difficultly in tracing payments.
An increasingly global economy has not been enough to remove these problems, in his view.
“Despite growing globalization, these challenges have not gone away, and continue to hinder growth and expansion for small businesses”, he said.
He also criticised what he considered to be the high fees associated with traditional money transfer providers.
“Traditionally, companies have only been able to use banks to send money to other countries, and the exchange rate and bank mark-ups are very high”, he said.
“This high cost significantly affects an SME’s margin. Additionally, the transfers take many days.”
Part of the interview with Wong focused on open banking. Open banking is a mechanism for financial institutions to deal efficiently with information about consumers in order to benefit those consumers.
Unddr open banking rules, it may be possible for people to use technology to more easily swap financial services providers.
“Comparing this industry between five years ago and now, there’s a lot of technology that makes it easier to do business”, he was quoted as saying.
“There are many types of financial technologies that traditional SMEs can embrace, such as AI (artificial intelligence), machine learning and ePayments.”
This discussion of open banking was a chance for him to refer to his own company’s work.
“There’s even invoice financing that helps SMEs ease their cashflows, and of course FX payment providers like TranSwap, which helps make internationalization less costly”, he explained.
TranSwap describes itself as a “platform that matches your transfer needs with others and helps your business save money”.
“TranSwap was created because we believe that with today’s technology, business owners should be empowered to make global payments quickly at a fair exchange rate”, it says.
It operates in a number of countries around the world, with 14 nations on its destination list.
It is licensed by various regulators and authorities, including the Monetary Authority of Singapore as well as the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department.
Do you work in the online money transfer field and want to stay updated on the latest news and information about this dynamic and ever-changing sector? If so, check out this page to see our latest news updates and more.
