Earthport Services
Earthport collects and remits international payments locally on behalf of corporates and banks in nearly 60 countries and territories today. Earthport also reaches all countries accessible via SWIFT. The innovative Earthport model, developed through 10 years of operating experience, provides a superior, efficient payments and collections service.
Over £70m has been invested in Earthport coverage, operations and technology. Processes have been optimised through live operations, delivering STP rates above 99%. A selection of delivery and execution models enables transactions to be least-cost-routed, further contributing to the low cost base. Supporting systems are built using banking industry standard components, into an SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), giving considerable speed and agility. Systems are continually renovated, to incorporate modern improvements.
Benefits of the Earthport model include:
- Transaction charges significantly lower than other cross-border payments services
- Transparent pricing established at initiation, since the Earthport model avoids the possibility of ‘bene-deducts’ (charges sometimes imposed by the receiving correspondent bank in the beneficiary’s country)
- Competitive FX rates
- Implementation is ‘light touch’, requiring very little technology support
- Time to live operation is typically measured in weeks
- Industry-standard compliance
The business model is used for transactions such as:
- International Collections – Earthport makes it easy for a buyer to pay cleared funds prior to the seller issuing the relevant goods or services. This avoids transaction risk associated with ‘card not present’ electronic purchases.
- Prepaid card loading – Earthport enables a cardholder to pay in funds into an Earthport Bank account held in another country, enabling the prepaid card provider to credit the appropriate equivalent value to the card.
- International Remittances – Earthport provides international account-account transfers in nearly 60 countries and territories, covering the main remittance channels. The Earthport model enables a cost-effective service suitable for this growing market.
- Trade & Supply Chain Finance – Many global trade payments are of moderate value (below £10,000). The Earthport trade payments solution, built together with Adobe, enables banks to offer a cost-effective service suitable for medium-to-small transactions.
- Mixed batches – Earthport’s process is particularly suitable for mixed batches of low to moderate value international payments, for example pensions payable to overseas residents, or disbursement of dividends.