Standard Chartered facilitates merger of CurrencyFair and Assembly Payments

By Leandra Monteiro

CurrencyFair, a global cross-border payments platform and Assembly Payments, whose platform automates complex payment workflows, announced their merger as a result of a strategic investment by Standard Chartered, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval.

SC Ventures, Standard Chartered Bank’s Innovation, Ventures and FinTech Investment Division, has doubled its commitment to the fast-growing payments industry, following its previous investment in assembly payments in the year 2020.

According to media reports, Bill Winters, Group Chief Executive of Standard Chartered said, “Digital payments is a core strategic area for Standard Chartered and our 2020 investment in Assembly Payments greatly enhanced our presence in the domestic payments business. By bringing together the complementary strengths of CurrencyFair and Assembly, we are supporting the merged company in offering the full range of payment services, providing retail and corporate clients access to fast, high-volume domestic and cross-border payments.”

According to media reports, Will Prendergast, Chairman of the Currency Fair said, “The merger of Currency Fair and Assembly Payments, in partnership with SC Ventures, is a strategic move that goes beyond the traditional trading nature of payment companies and provides companies with a core suite of integrated financial services.”

CurrencyFair and Assembly will continue with their ‘customer first’ approach. They will deepen relationships with their customers by enabling them to easily access, build, connect, and use any payment service from within their existing business operations without any of the technical, compliance or geographical intricacies associated with traditional financial services offerings. The merged plan will put emphasis on five core capabilities that include payments, global payment accounts, partner ecosystem, lending and settlement, and services. This has been put forth in order to address the growth opportunities in the US$2 trillion revenue market for payments.