Australia’s Heritage Bank Debuts Cross-Border Payments

Customers of Australia-based Heritage Bank will be able to more easily send and receive money from overseas as a new online international payment service from money transfer company Convera has rolled out, Heritage Bank said in a news release.

This will see Heritage offering a better and easier way to do international payments through internet banking or the mobile app, through the API solution from Convera. The feature is an upgrade because international payments used to only be able to be done at a branch, and took 48 hours to complete.

Heritage Bank and Convera have worked together before, having been partners for years in Australia.

“With the explosion of online purchases now taking place across international market places, our new international payments service provides a seamless facility for our members,” said Heritage Bank CEO Peter Lock. “This fantastic new service allows our members to send and receive money internationally direct from our online and mobile banking system, in close to real time and around the clock no matter where they are.”

And according to Sam Fitzpatrick, regional vice president and head of APAC at Convera, research shows that a third of post-COVID recovery is going to come from “modern digital, deliverable services,” so Convera has been working on digital transformation for financial institutions.

Convera CEO Patrick Gauthier told Karen Webster in March about the problems with payment rails especially for middle-market firms, which have to deal with a B2B market above $130 trillion annually. He said companies with top lines between $1 million and $1 billion want to improve things and move beyond the old paper-based processes.

Read more: Midmarket Firms Seek Cross-Border Payments Stability, Convera CEO Says

“We take the great unknowns and the fluctuation away from them and allow them to focus more on their businesses,” Gauthier said.

Convera’s options focus on currency, derivatives and forward contracts to help with volatility, and the company focuses on making global payments easier.