TransferWise has launched TransferWise for Banks in the U.S. This allows banks, credit unions and other financial institutions to integrate TransferWise’s API directly into their infrastructure, so customers can make international payments from within their banking app.
First partners: Along with the Stanford Federal Credit Union, Novo is one of the international money transfer firm's first US partners.
- A challenger bank focused on SMB customers, Novo serves the underserved small business owner that typically finds modern business banking cumbersome — from onboarding to logging in.
- Small businesses trade internationally. A U.S. business working with freelancers and manufacturers overseas frequently resorts to wiring money abroad. But wires are difficult to initiate and their costs and timing are opaque.
- "Businesses have become much more global, with a single owner-operator running a business catering to customers around the world out of the palm of his or her hand via mobile," said Michael Rangel, founder and CEO of Novo. "Unfortunately, international money transfer remains a big pain point for businesses wishing to scale, as even the smallest businesses require this important capability."
TransferWise integrates with banks: The U.S. launch of TransferWise for Banks follows a number of bank partnerships across Europe for TransferWise, including Monzo in the UK, Bunq in the Netherlands, N26 in Germany and LHV in Estonia.
- Novo customers can sign up for TransferWise in one click and make immediate and secure payments right from their Novo accounts.
- TransferWise has also announced a partnership with BPCE, France’s second largest bank.
- More partnerships are set to rollout globally over the next twelve months.
- Where as the old banking model focused on product acquisition and cross-selling, challenger banks like Novo frequently focus on building partnerships and integrating products that their customers already use or improve the customer experience. Novo, for its part, has launched integrations with Slack and Zapier and provides a direct feed into accounting platform Xero.
- Modern banks are built to partner. New York-based Novo's prefers to partner with best-in-class products rather than offering a subpar whitelabled solution.
- "We are building the best business bank in the world and Transferwise is building the best international payment experience, it only makes sense to partner," said Rangel.
Structuring partnerships with banks: Novo doesn't charge anything for this transaction, but TransferWise does charge a fee for its service.
- "By plugging into our API, Novo and SFCU just became the fastest and cheapest to use in the U.S. for international payments," said Kristo Käärmann, CEO and co-founder of TransferWise. "In fact, people and businesses staying with traditional providers end up paying 5-10x more than the customers of our partners, who can experience the low cost and convenience of TransferWise services without leaving their banking app.”