UK's Winvesta offers Indian exporters alternative payment gateway

UK-headquartered Winvesta, a neobank building cross-border banking and wealth management solutions, has launched a foreign payment collections system for Indian exporters.

The company said that the service announced last week comes as an extension of the existing multi-currency banking facility and will help reduce export costs by up to 8 per cent. Merchants get local account details in the US, UK, and Europe, which means the buyers only have to do a local transfer to the exporter's account.

We are extremely excited to launch foreign collection accounts for businesses, said Swastik Nigam, Founder and CEO of Winvesta.

"Many Indian businesses get a raw deal. The collections are expensive, delayed and opaque. Much of that money never made it to Indian shores. With this launch, we change that," he said.

According to the finance expert, India's cross-border flows are over USD 800 billion annually and his company wants to make it easier for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to bring home more of what they earn overseas.

Under the system, businesses receive virtual accounts in over 30 currencies, including USD, GBP, and EUR. The accounts serve as collection accounts for service exporters to receive payments, which are then converted to INR and deposited into their Indian bank accounts the same day. Winvesta says it supports payment collections from over 180 countries.

According to the neobank, small and medium enterprise (SME) exporters' share in overall exports from India has been rapidly growing and is now close to 50 per cent of total exports.

This includes both service and goods exports. Improving logistics and easy e-commerce platforms have helped Indian businesses expand globally rapidly. At the same time, borderless marketing tools and collaborative platforms have led to a boom in digital exports from the service industry, the company said.

Cross-border collections, unfortunately, lagged the rapid boom in exports from the SME segment, said Prateek Jain, President of Winvesta.

Winvesta's mission is to simplify cross-border finances for everyone, whether individuals looking to invest overseas or an exporter looking to get paid by a foreign buyer. With India crossing the USD 400 billion mark in exports for the first time in a fiscal year, it not only marked a key milestone but also helped us realise the potential for such an offering at this point in time, he said.

Winvesta said its collection accounts have a one-time refundable setup fee of Rs 499, with no monthly fees. There are also no fees to collect money in the accounts or to withdraw funds to an Indian bank. Foreign funds are converted to INR at a "very low spread" of 1.50 per cent from interbank rates and with significant volumes, these rates could fall further.

Founded by former Deutsche Bank veterans Swastik Nigam and Prateek Jain, Winvesta was created as a platform offering global financial products for Indian residents and businesses.