Stitch and CrissCross expand cross-border payments in South Africa

By Puja Sharma

Stitch Group, parent of payments company Stitch, adds international USD invoice payments to enterprise offering, in partnership with CrissCross

The Stitch Group, a South Africa-based payments infrastructure company, in partnership with CrissCross FX, a registered Treasury Outsourcing Company (TOC), has launched an international invoice payments service for enterprise businesses.

Stitch Group clients can now settle international invoices in USD and other G10 currencies in a streamlined, compliant and cost-efficient way, all managed through a single provider. The service is delivered through Stitch Group entities, and in partnership with several South African Authorised Dealers.

Core advantages businesses can get when leveraging Stitch Group for international invoicing vs traditional banks:

• An API for foreign payouts: this eliminates the back-and-forth files, forms and emails with banks. All existing Stitch clients get this feature on their existing integration
• Faster turnaround times: The Stitch Group can now manage the full cross-border invoice settlement process on behalf of clients. A business deposits ZAR into a designated account, and Stitch coordinates FX execution and settlement to their international recipient in their currency, handling the required regulatory reporting throughout.
• More competitive rates: thanks to deep liquidity pools
• Streamlined reporting: including support for BOP (Balance of Payments) reporting and compliance requirements

“For a lot of South African businesses, paying an international invoice is complicated, expensive and time-consuming, involving multiple intermediaries, FX timing and rate risk, complex reporting obligations and several-day timelines for correspondent banking transfers to clear,” said Junaid Dadan, President + Co-founder at Stitch. “Along with CrissCross FX, Stitch Group can now support enterprise companies with this critical payments flow in a way that’s streamlined, automated, more cost effective and much faster.”

The Stitch Group can now manage the full cross-border invoice settlement process on behalf of clients. A business deposits ZAR into a designated account, and Stitch coordinates FX execution and settlement to their international recipient in their currency, handling the required regulatory reporting throughout.

Settlement can happen at T+0 or T+1, with competitive FX rates. Everything is managed through a centralised dashboard where businesses can view their ZAR balance, book FX deals, review and accept rates, and upload supporting documentation in one place. This service is designed for enterprise businesses that pay international invoices with any regularity and want to reduce administrative overhead, improve settlement speed and access better FX rates than they’d typically get through a retail banking channel.

Common use cases include businesses settling offshore technology vendors or SaaS providers, importers paying international suppliers within agreed payment terms, companies managing ongoing service agreements with offshore partners, and businesses that have previously absorbed FX and treasury management as an internal overhead they’d prefer to outsource.