Saxo Payments calls for Fintech Industry to step up and help merchants reach their full international trading potential

The findings from the latest Financial Stability Board (FSB) underlines the on-going challenges faced by businesses, when trading internationally, reinforcing the findings produced in Saxo Payments White Paper Cross Border Payments for Cross Border Merchants – An Internationally ‘Local’ Future – published last week.

Anders La Cour, CEO of Saxo Payments: “The latest report highlights the growing need for the FinTech sector to utilise the new ecosystem of financial utilities to help merchants reach their full international trading potential.

A distinct lack of viable options in offering a global account infrastructure that merchants can access quickly and cost-effectively has halted over 39% of merchants recently surveyed by Saxo Payments[1] from expanding into new international markets, even though they already trade across some borders.

“Payment providers need to remove the barriers such as poor FX rates, high cross border transfer fees and slow settlement timescales so merchants have the ability to trade anywhere in the world as if it was a local transaction” confirms Anders La Cour. 

“A major priority for merchants looking at cross border payments is the ability to transact quickly across cross borders as they do locally, with little or no impact on the bottom line.  They require speed of settlement, speed with which banks are able to provide financing, speed of response from a bank or payment provider. Anything else means international trade is simply not viable. A delay in any of these can cause a merchant to falter which cannot be good for the global economy because these small businesses are key to the success of local economies and communities”.

“The report published by FSB supports the findings from our latest research looking at the challenging landscape merchants are operating in and presents the perfect opportunity for a new generation of payment providers to service this crucial segment of the market”. 

[1] Saxo Payments commissioned Atomik Research to survey 200 merchants who trade internationally – April 2017.