Crown Agents Bank and AbbeyCross have developed a plan to rollout cross-border payments solutions in emerging markets, with the former joining the latter’s ABX Platform.
The platform will be provided to AbbeyCross users with competitive Emerging Market FX rates. The end goal is to facilitate cross-border payments solutions with fast and efficient settlement within these emerging markets.
AbbeyCross partners including commercial banks, money services businesses (MSBs), NGOs and charitable trusts will be able to participate, and gain access to Crown Agents bank’s global network.
“We are excited to have Crown Agents Bank join the ABX Platform as a founding payment partner,” said Mike Robertson, CEO and Co-Founder of AbbeyCross.
“Their longstanding and rich experience in the Emerging Market FX and payments space builds on our mission to offer an enhanced user experience with greater provider choice, enhanced price transparency and a more efficient settlement experience, in turn enabling market participants to deliver better service levels to their customers and stakeholders.”
The duo state that users will be able to compare multiple rates and service providers via the integration. The firms also aim to offer payments providers access to a wider and deeper network of potential customers.
The partnership falls in line with Crown Agents Bank’s wider goals and ambitions, particularly with regards to the integration’s target customer-base.
NGOs, for example, have been a traditional area of focus for the company, as the firm’s Head of Global Payments, Nkosi Moyo, explained to Payment Expert in an interview last year.
By becoming one of the first payments firms on the ABX Network, Crown Agents Bank hopes to keep pace on its goal of reaching countries which it believes are underserved financial markets.
Colin Digby, Head of Strategic Client Coverage of Crown Agents Bank, remarked: “Financial institutions are struggling to access hard-to-reach markets, especially as counterparties retreat from these increasingly underserved and challenging geographies.
“This is why the AbbeyCross ABX Platform is so important. It addresses the technical integration challenges and the transparency dynamic as it provides an easy single access point to these markets via multiple LPs. It’s a real game changer for us, the institutions we serve and the wider market.”
