By Jay Dahal, co-founder of Machnet.
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It’s 2022 and the world is getting more digitized every minute. People are learning to maximize technology and API is at its core.
You get things done almost instantly because of this digital messenger called the API. Think of API as your personal assistant, and everything you find on the internet as shops in a mall. API is charged with understanding what you’re looking for—such as tickets, a flight or online info. After it takes note of what you’re looking for, it asks the vendors what they have and delivers those answers back to you.
And when you’ve seen all your options, you can tell API which ones you’d like to purchase, where you’d like them delivered and how you would prefer to settle the payment. That way, there is no need for you to find a connection to all these different vendors, all you have to do is instruct it to do all those digital errands. Here’s how you can implement an API:
Cross-Border Banking
A few decades ago, sending money across the globe had huge friction. Today, it’s smooth and a week’s worth of waiting is now doable in minutes.
International banking became such a hit that the service of sending money to another country generates about $29 trillion as of 2019, and you no longer have to be a bank to offer these services. That’s the beauty of API—instead of having to pass through tons of calls, emails and regulations, API coordinates the information with the correspondent banks and exchange houses, making it faster for you to serve your client and start offering banking products. And as you trim down the time, you can spend time doing things that you are best at and thinking of ways to expand your services.
Embed A Remittance Product
Businesses looking to tap the international market are upward bound so long as they are able to replicate the quality of service and make the internal processes as seamless as possible.
Step 1: Do your domestic expansion homework. How do businesses operate in the country you want to reach? What do you need to make this possible? Who are the competitors to look out for?
Step 2: Arrange all internal processes to make it easy for your partners to remit individual payments. You can do this by embedding a remittance product powered by a cross-border money transfer API in your current business infrastructure.
Step 3: Make sure all business SOPs are in place! From brand guidelines to marketing collaterals, have them ready so that your potential partner sees how seamless your operating processes are.
Once you’ve got all these down, all they’ll have to do is sign the contract, pay the subscription fee and start transacting.
Pro-tip: Take a share of that $29 trillion and add remittance as a revenue stream in your business model. That means your customers can buy your products from across the world and send them as gifts to their loved ones in another country—or even send shop credits to their friends around the world.
Payments
With remote work becoming a preferred option, more and more marketplaces are brought to life. Some are industry-specific where you can search for influencers or writers, some are marketplaces for project-based workers and some are for full/part-time remote employees. As the tech startup grows, so does the competition.
That means talents all over the world are in constant search of places that not only get them jobs but cost them less to receive payouts. Most marketplaces still rely on the current payment aggregators that we know not only cost more but are slow and disjointed.
With the competition getting tighter, every cent in service charge can make or break your business. To get ahead, try to find a Money Transfer API company that can aggregate services through their platform, in which API plays a vital role. Your goal is to find an effective payment processor, enabling your customers to get funds sooner and cheaply. Unlocking this can help you expand into the global market with payment API.
Ultimately, successful business owners understand that it’s all about relationships. How does a customer feel when they purchase from you? Do they feel taken care of? Are their needs considered? How easy is it to make that purchase? If you can make the sales process faster and more seamless, do that. If you can reassure your customers that there will be a way to send and refund their money if you don’t deliver, then you build trust. If you can serve your clients better and faster, then go for that.
