Standard Chartered helps Irish and Australian payments duo to merge

CurrencyFair and Assembly Payments will combine and see their joint headcount reach 160.

Ireland’s CurrencyFair and Australia’s Assembly Payments are to merge with the help of existing investor and banking giant Standard Chartered.

Last year Standard Chartered made a strategic investment in Assembly Payments of an undisclosed size, and the duo also launched a joint-venture in Singapore.

Today the bank is increasing its stake in Assembly through its SC Ventures arm, while also facilitating its merger with CurrencyFair.

“Digital payments is a core strategic area for Standard Chartered and our 2020 investment in Assembly Payments greatly enhanced our presence in the domestic payments business,” said Standard Chartered’s group CEO Bill Winters.

Assembly Partners offers API-led payment processing for fintechs like Wise and Bichal, while CurrencyFair is a remittance platform for overseas payments.

“By bringing together the complementary strengths of CurrencyFair and Assembly, we are supporting the merged company in offering the full range of payment services, providing retail and corporate clients access to fast, high-volume domestic and cross-border payments,” added Winters.

By bringing both platform and payment processor together, Standard Chartered said the merged company would further simplify and reduce fragmentation in the payments ecosystem.

The merger, which is still subject to regulatory and shareholder approval, will see CurrencyFair CEO Paul Byrne promoted to lead the merged business.