GoCardless partners with TransferWise to bring low cost currency conversion to recurring payments

GoCardless, the London fintech that makes it easy for businesses to offer recurring bank payments, has partnered with TransferWise for its currency exchange.

The move sees GoCardless utilise the TransferWise API and the money transfer company’s “TransferWise for Business” product and in turn provide TransferWise’s FX rates to its own customers.

More broadly, the partnership furthers GoCardless’ mission to become a one-stop-shop globally for businesses that want to let customers pay via recurring bank payments, known as Direct Debits in the U.K.

It also chalks up another win for TransferWise, which has always wanted to power currency exchange for other financial service providers and not just its own app, but has sometimes struggled with this aspect of its platform play. Along with GoCardless, TransferWise has partnered with the U.K.’s Monzo, Germany’s N26, Estonia’s LHV and BPCE Groupe, France’s second largest bank.

To date, GoCardless is used by more than 50,000 businesses worldwide, spanning multinational corporations to SMBs. GoCardless says it processes $13 billion of payments across more than 30 countries each. Along with its U.K. HQ, the company has offices in France, Australia, Germany and (most recently) the U.S.

“By integrating directly to the TransferWise API, businesses can benefit from low cost, convenient and completely transparent pricing no matter what the currency, without leaving their account,” says TransferWise. “This cuts out the pain of having to open a new bank account in every country where the business collects payments, as well as eradicating hefty receiving fees for foreign currency transactions”.

Support for TransferWise-powered currency exchange will be available to GoCardless customers via a phased roll-out starting later this month. Receiving currencies initially being supported are GBP, USD, EUR, SEK, DKK, CAD, AUD and NZD.

In a brief message exchange with GoCardless co-founder and CEO Hiroki Takeuchi — who was otherwise occupied doing his CEO thing at Web Summit — he told me that the new TransferWise integration should help the company attract new customers as well as better serve existing ones. With more and more companies operating globally, especially digital companies, Takeuchi has long-argued that a recurring payments network has to be truly global.

“[The] main reason customers aren’t able to leverage our coverage to date is because they can’t receive multiple currencies. They want to be paid out in their home currency into their local bank account,” he explained.