Opening up the world – How Trustly empowers cross-border payments

The world shrinks as open banking grows. Trustly smooths out cross-border payments, providing instant, secure payments for customers as well as KYC and compliance for businesses.

Sending money across borders to loved ones can be costly, risky and take a long time – for both customers and payment service providers. Money travelling across borders adds an additional layer of complexity to customers and businesses which can often disrupt the customer journey.

Complicated systems, FX fees and banking complexities can make remittance difficult. Customers are often confused by the best way to pay, and businesses are limited in their expansion by their complicated payment models.

Trustly provides a solution to this from both ends, and with our open banking services, we can make sending money abroad simple and cost-effective. Customers can send money abroad with one secure payment method and businesses can be assured of smooth payment processes and cross-border compliance.

We already assist with cross-border payments at over 12,000 banks across Europe. We are a top choice for many remittance and cross-border payments companies due to the solutions we provide for both customers and businesses. Open banking is at the heart of our solution.

What is open banking?

Open Banking is a financial practice that uses APIs to bridge the gap between consumers and banks. In simple terms, it allows customers to safely grant third-party access to their bank information, which then opens up a world of opportunities.

Customers can pay, deposit and withdraw without directly using their card – instead of approving a licensed third-party such as Trustly to connect to their bank.

By cutting out these intermediaries, the fees, settlement times and risk can be substantially reduced. For these reasons, Trustly is ideal for remittance and payments companies. We already work with several clients in this space such as Western Union and MoneyGram to improve operations and user satisfaction.

Challenges of sending money abroad

Sending money abroad can be a complicated process, for both businesses and customers. Perhaps the most feared risk of sending money abroad is money going missing, particularly if it is needed for family members, and paying huge fees.

With the increased sensitive nature of the transactions, customers need additional reassurance that their remittance is cost-effective and secure.

Challenges facing customers

Rapid and unpredictable changes in exchange rates and high transaction and currency conversion fees are often big pain points for customers.

Slow payments can increase both of these pain points, with movements in the market combined with long wait times for payments adding to customer friction and dissatisfaction.

Challenges facing businesses

For businesses, a concern for cross-border payments is often regulatory compliance. Companies must comply with relatively stringent anti-money-laundering and KYC regulations which involve extensive verification processes. On top of this, businesses also face complex technological infrastructure changes, including IT and security.

High-costs are also an issue too. Exchange rate fees in payments add up, negatively impacting cash flow and business processes. Many companies will add a markup too – although Trustly’s exchange rate fees are zero.

GDPR must also be considered as data protection concerns are at an all-time high. Different countries also have varying requirements for their licensing, which can add further complexity.

Trustly’s open banking as a solution

Trustly provides a solution to these issues for cross-border payments companies and customers. For example, MoneyGram uses Trustly to enable millions of its users to make cardless international money transfers across Europe.

For MoneyGram, Trustly handles compliance, and KYC for customers, smoothing out the process for both customers and companies. The result is faster onboarding and an A2A payment structure which allows near-instant payments for customers, as well as reassurance of the security of their details and instant settlement of funds in 33 countries.

Currency conversion

Any customer anxieties about currencies and payment choices are assuaged by Trustly’s open banking. Open banking payments offer an easy currency conversion within the payments process, meaning that customers can be assured of a simple payment process.

It is also a standardised way to accept payments across borders that covers Europe and the US without having to enable multiple payment methods in each country.

Furthermore, Trustly can settle locally in all European currencies, which any cross-border payments business can take advantage of. It eliminates all extra FX fees and removes the need to find a provider in each of these countries, which further smooths out the process.

Efficiency

With Trustly, customers can pay directly from their bank account, removing the need for entering card numbers. All payment information is imported directly from the customer’s bank and authenticated with their existing bank app. Funds are also settled immediately.

By linking thousands of banks together across Europe, customers, businesses and institutions can make cross-border payments instantly to almost anyone.

Trustly also removes caps on high-value transactions, which means that there is also no need to worry about limits when sending money.

Speed

Speed is of great importance when sending money across borders, and we understand the value of getting money where it needs to be quickly. Long waiting times can often be a burden, but through Trustly’s instant settlement, we can make your pay-ins and pay-outs instant.

Security

Trustly essentially handles all security for cross-border payments businesses.

With Trustly, customers can avoid frequently sharing sensitive financial information and instead keep it locked away under Trustly's high-level security. This way, customers are also far less likely to be victims of fraud, particularly APP fraud.

Trustly’s open banking uses Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) measures to further reduce the risk of fraud in cross-border payments. End-user data is intertwined into all our products, so compliance and fraud mitigation are all handled.

The future of cross-border payments

The world shrinks as open banking grows. Many regions such as Latin America and Southeast Asia are taking steps to expand their payments options more every year with open banking, allowing for even smoother payments across the world.

Implementing open banking into your business will mean joining the new banking and payments ecosystems creating a borderless payments world.

Trustly is part of this future and creates a smooth process for the customer. Businesses can also be assured of the security and privacy of their consumers’ data.

Conclusion

Trustly is an ideal asset for cross-border payments companies, as we have demonstrated with some of the biggest names in the industry. Our solutions create streamlined business processes that build customer trust and increase retention.

Remittance and cross-border payments with Trustly are made smooth and secure, and allow customers to swiftly and safely send money abroad, and for businesses to expand across the globe.

If you’d like to know more about how Trustly’s open banking can help you, then you can find out more about our frictionless financial services on our website.

If you’d like to implement Trustly into your business, then speak to our sales team today.

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