AccessPay Land €100,000 Prize in Cross-border Payments Innovation Challenge

Manchester Fintech AccessPay has been awarded €100,000 after being named one of two winners at an industry challenge event hosted by international payments network SWIFT.

At the two-day challenge event held in Singapore, AccessPay was one of five start-ups to share their views on the challenges impacting cross-border payments.

Working with SWIFT’s global payments innovation (gpi) team and gpi subscribed banks, they were tasked with demonstrating their innovative thinking by making recommendations for how FinTech companies can build additional overlay services on to the SWIFT gpi platform, a new standard for cross-border payments.

Overlay services deliberated at the event included improved corporate payments and cash management services, API integration into banks’ application processes, business intelligence to provide payments routing intelligence, and enhanced FX and hedging services.

AccessPay, a specialist in cloud-based payments technology, was successful with its innovative proposal, designed to enhance visibility of in-flight cross border payments for corporate customers.

AccessPay will now have the opportunity to work with the SWIFT and gpi banks over a three-month period to bring its concept to life and participate in Sibos, SWIFT’s annual financial services event to be held in Toronto in October.

AccessPay’s Product Director, James Higgins, said:

“This was a fantastic opportunity for our business to present our proof-of concept initiative and discuss how best to support gpi and ensure the maximum benefit to the wider financial community. We are delighted to have been chosen as a winner of this challenge and look forward to the opportunity to showcase our ideas at Sibos.

“AccessPay has championed the evolution of payments and finance since its establishment five years ago, and being able to work collaboratively to develop our proposition, we are in a position to further evolve the fast-moving payments industry and provide value to both banks and corporate customers.”

Christian Sarafidis, Chief Marketing Officer, SWIFT, said: “This challenge was designed by SWIFT to actively encourage collaborative innovation around SWIFT gpi, together with FinTech firms and banks. The outcome to this challenge has been phenomenal; we are co-creating innovative overlay services over SWIFT gpi rails for the benefit of the corporate treasurer and I congratulate all involved. We look forward to seeing AccessPay developing their proof-of-value over the coming months.”