Cross-border fintech is a scorching trend in today’s financial world. According to the Bank of England, the cross-border payments market is expected to surpass $250 trillion by 2027. Fintechs are giving banks a run for their money (pun intended) in the business-to-business sector, leveraging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain.
Unsurprisingly, one of the major themes among Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 cohort of nearly 30 fintech startups is finding ways to facilitate global money movement. Here’s an overview of the exciting fintech innovations showcased at this week’s YC Demo Day:
Numo
What it does: Offshore bank for international contractors
Numo specializes in payroll systems and banking solutions for remote and international contractors. Users gain access to a U.S. bank account and low-cost local payment rails. CEO Derrick Wolbert, who met co-founders Reuben Balik and Q Carlson while working at Hologram.com, a global cellular network, explained that the company has “stitched together the best carriers in each market,” allowing users to withdraw their funds in their local currency instantly. With a successful test run in Nigeria, Numo already boasts 1,000 users and 330 verified contractors. Wolbert declared Numo as “financial infrastructure for the new generation of tech workers.”
Cleva
What it does: U.S.-based banking for Africa
Cleva, similar to Numo, provides a U.S. bank account that allows non-residents to receive funds and convert them into their local currency. Co-founder Tolu Alabi’s prior experience in building cross-border issuing and banking products at Stripe, coupled with Philip Abel’s expertise in multi-region infrastructure at companies like AWS and Twilio, were significant drivers in launching the startup. According to Alabi, the startup’s motivation stemmed from the fact that 70% of Nigerians lost their wealth last year due to currency devaluation. Through Cleva, “Africans can receive dollars from anywhere in the world,” Alabi confirmed. The market for this service is substantial at $18 billion, and Cleva has already reached profitability just six months after its launch. It is currently generating $120,000 in monthly revenue.
xPay
What it does: International payments API for businesses in India and Southeast Asia
xPay acts as an international reseller, allowing merchants to “start selling internationally right away, without a U.S. bank account or entity,” according to CEO Aniket Gupta. The company takes pride in its ability to enable companies to sell in the U.S., Europe, Middle East, and Southeast Asia with just one integration and “one-tenth” the time. Having only launched four weeks ago, xPay already has 25 signed contracts and over 200 people on its waiting list. The potential for xPay to become a future Stripe acquisition is on the horizon, but for now, the company is focused on processing an annualized transaction volume of $5 million by the end of the month.
Swift
What it does: Instant money movement anywhere in the world
Moving money between accounts still takes days, which led engineers David Lalor and Rakeeb Hossain to establish Swift, providing a “unified API for risk-free instant funding.” The company is working on building account-to-account international transfers to speed up the flow of over $150 trillion that goes through banking rails annually. Swift’s first product, an instant deposit API for brokerages and digital banks, is already operational on Venmo, Zelle, and FedNow.
Infinity
What it does: Cross-border banking for small businesses in India
Amidst a lot of presentations from old friends over the past two days, it was refreshing to see two siblings collaborate to form a company. For Sourav Choraria and his brother, Sidharth Choraria, this marks their second venture together after selling a health tech startup. Sourav, who previously served as the head of growth at wealth management giant Paytm Money, and Sidharth, a former project manager at Amazon involved in launching its Appstore’s in-app purchase SDK, are now focusing on the fintech industry with Infinity. The company has developed a treasury management platform and is now introducing multi-currency accounts and global payments. With businesses in India accounting for $700 billion in cross-border trades annually, Infinity stands to make 1% from these transactions, which amounts to a whopping $7 billion opportunity. In just three months, Infinity has secured 110 customers and is experiencing a 20% weekly growth, as confirmed by Sourav: “Our goal is to create a financial oasis for cross-border companies.”
