International Business Payments: the obstacles and the options

The average cost of using your bank to transfer money across international borders is somewhere around 7%¹. And that single number can only be an estimate, because it hides a myriad of fees and opaque FX rates applied by the banks processing the payments. That’s a lot of money, but it doesn’t buy an efficient service.

Until now, there have only been two options for making international payments. This article summarizes the two standard ones and introduces you to a third (and we think much, much better) way.

The reasons for paying someone overseas are pretty standard:

Settling invoices for overseas suppliers or customers

Paying overseas employees

Making intra-company transfers

Clearly, these are all routine transactions that ought to have well-grooved
processes by now. Most businesses choose one of two main ways to make international payments: you can use your business bank or an international payment specialist. Each has its pros and cons.