Bengaluru: Cross-border payments product Venlo has relaunched its platform, enabling businesses, freelancers, creators and remote teams in India to accept global payments in a more straightforward, frictionless and cost-effective manner.
Venlo is a global payments app for faster and effortless cross-border payments. In April, Venlo was launched to enable international travellers to make UPI payments in India and has now pivoted to ease the burden on the growing number of freelancers, creators and small & medium businesses in receiving payments from global clients.
“Despite the massive disruption in the banking and financial services, accepting payments from global clients is still a challenge, where the freelance economy, exports segment is burgeoning. With Venlo, our aim is to make all cross-border payments simple, fast and affordable,” said Kushal Prakash, founder of Venlo.
The process of accepting payments from global clients through the traditional wire/SWIFT methods is cumbersome and slow. The process requires significant paperwork, and payments take longer to be credited, even though they are released on time. Moreover, payment apps charge hefty fees for each transaction, making them unviable for large volumes of transactions.
However, Venlo enables a smoother experience by setting up a dedicated USD collection account. This account can be linked to any existing INR account, and users have the flexibility to convert to the local currency with convenience. A simple transfer between the accounts can credit the funds from the USD collection accounts to the INR account.
Venlo enables recipients to save at least 50% on average on each transaction. Funds are transferred in one business day, with the inward remittances’ advice, or E-FIRA received in the Venlo inbox after settlement. Clients in the US can make payments via local rails such as ACH or FedWire.
Venlo also offers a Global SWIFT account for inward remittances from 140 countries, which is faster and more cost-effective than the traditional SWIFT method. Collection accounts in EUR & GBP will soon be enabled.
Venlo, which is available on both iOS & Android, is backed by multistage accelerator fund 9Unicorns. It was launched in April 2023, and until May 2023, the platform enabled international travellers to top up Venlo accounts using debit/ credit cards and make seamless UPI payments within India; this feature has since been discontinued.
