Ant International and Barclays Partner on Foreign Exchange Solutions

Ant International and Barclays have partnered to help businesses reduce their foreign exchange-related costs and their risks against global volatility.

In the first stage of the collaboration, Ant has completed its first batch of intra-group FX transactions with Barclays, the companies said in a Friday (May 9) press release.

The partnership will also see the companies combine their solutions, with Ant’s Time-Series Transformer (TST) AI FX Model being integrated into Barclays’ FX hedging platform, BARX NetFX, according to the release.

BARX NetFX serves the eCommerce and payment industries, while the TST AI model forecasts a company’s cash flow and FX exposure on an hourly, daily and weekly basis, lowering hedging costs and overall FX costs, the release said.

This combination will enable Barclays to offer more precise FX hedging, lower its hedging costs and increase the efficiency of its platform, which in turn will allow Ant to leverage this cost efficiency in its FX quotes for businesses, offer competitive rates and maintain relative price stability for major trading currencies, per the release.

“By combining Ant International’s advanced AI forecasting capabilities with our market-leading FX expertise, we’ve been able to reduce uncertainty and cost, setting a new benchmark for FX risk management,” Ben Parkinson, head of global FinTech and FX automation sales at Barclays, said in the release.

Kelvin Li, general manager of platform tech at Ant International, said in the release that the results of the combination “demonstrate how technology can enhance the way businesses manage their global liquidity, by enabling more efficient FX transactions.”

“It also shows how enhancing our treasury management can benefit our customers, when businesses translate the cost efficiencies into competitive FX rates,” Li said.

Businesses can encounter a rise in foreign exchange exposure and settlement challenges as they diversify their trade relationships to circumvent tariff barriers, PYMNTS reported Monday (May 5). Sophisticated solutions for cross-border trade can help firms mitigate risk, enhance liquidity and maintain competitiveness.

In an earlier partnership, Ant International said in November that it was collaborating with Singapore bank OCBC to enhance cross-border fund settlements by exploring innovations in tokenized deposits for global treasury management.

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