New Zealand-based cross border payments company Latipay has secured over $NZ4.1 million in venture capital funding to help it build current operations in New Zealand and Australia, and expand into Singapore and the US.
Investment from Singapore-based start-up investor Jubilee Capital Management will be used to hire new IT staff and scale up the business.
“We are a global business, focused on the global market and in the next couple of years we will be on par with PayPal, Stripe and Square,” says Latipay chief executive Leigh Flounders.
“It’s about scale and market dominance in the global sphere.”
Latipay allows Chinese consumers to make online purchases from foreign businesses in their own currency. Foreign merchants, be they in New Zealand, the US, Australia or anywhere else is the world is paid in their local currency. The company has been operating in New Zealand for a year and launched its Australian operations in November 2016.
Latipay opens doors for foreign businesses wanting to target Chinese consumers by making payment and collecting payment simple and seamless. Because only a fraction of Chinese consumers have credit cards, many foreign transactions involve time-consuming and expensive currency exchange, bank to bank transactions or wire transfers.
Flounders says Latipay has deals with China’s most popular e-wallets, allowing consumers to pay with Alipay, WeChat, JD Pay and Baidu.
“Latipay globally is the only payment platform working with those main four main Chinese e-wallets. Along with partnerships with 19 Chinese banks that gives us a very strong position worldwide.”
Latipay is also uniquely compliant with China’s regulatory system and has numerous accreditations to ensure its services are safe and compliant. It is cost competitive, offering a favourable exchange rate to Chinese purchasers and does not charge fees to merchants. It services are also quick; in most cases transactions can be completed in two business days.
“We’re proud to have built a product that makes the possibility of trading with China an option for all businesses regardless of their size,” says Flounders.